Khamal Georges

khamal.georges@cnc3.co.tt

As the PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion pre­pares to ask the pop­u­la­tion for a sec­ond term in of­fice, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley is ask­ing that cit­i­zens not judge his ad­min­is­tra­tion sole­ly on the out of con­trol mur­der rate even though he ad­mit­ted that his gov­ern­ment has not been suc­cess­ful on crime.

Run­away crime has been one of the fail­ings that have tar­nished the PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion’s record of of­fice with more than 2000 cit­i­zens be­ing killed un­der their watch. Since the PNM took of­fice in 2015, mur­ders moved from 463 in 2016 to 538 in 2019. Last year’s fig­ure rep­re­sent­ed the sec­ond high­est mur­der toll in this coun­try’s his­to­ry. Al­though Dr Kei­th Row­ley is op­ti­mistic that cit­i­zens will no­tice re­sults in the com­ing weeks and months, he al­so be­lieves the en­tire coun­try is un­der­es­ti­mat­ing the chal­lenge posed by crim­i­nals.

“It would not be fair to the gov­ern­ment to be mea­sured by this sit­u­a­tion that didn’t arise overnight, and is not a fea­ture of this ad­min­is­tra­tion,” Dr Row­ley said.

“While we would not have elim­i­nat­ed or even re­duced mur­ders as we have em­barked up­on, there are a lot of oth­er things that the gov­ern­ment has been suc­cess­ful at, so I would hope that the pop­u­la­tion will judge us on the broad­er can­vas than this chron­ic prob­lem that we are grap­pling with,” said the prime min­is­ter.

That po­si­tion con­trasts that tak­en in the PNM’s 2015 man­i­festo where it crit­i­cised the UNC for a mur­der count that ex­ceed­ed 400, lament­ing that vi­o­lent crime was “out of con­trol.” When ques­tioned on this, Dr Row­ley cred­it­ed that state­ment to an ex­pres­sion of op­ti­mism about the ef­fort that his ad­min­is­tra­tion in­tend­ed to make. But in a one-on-one in­ter­view at the Prime Min­is­ter’s of­fice at White­hall, he ad­mit­ted that en­thu­si­asm had not yet yield­ed the de­sired re­sults.

“We have not made the lev­el of progress that the cit­i­zens ex­pect and de­mand and are en­ti­tled to,” the Prime Min­is­ter con­ced­ed in a no­tice­ably calm tone. “We are in fact fac­ing an on­go­ing crime wave.”

In the wide-rang­ing in­ter­view, Dr Row­ley field­ed ques­tions on crime, the econ­o­my, mar­i­jua­na de­crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion, suc­ces­sion plan­ning, among oth­er top­ics. The in­ter­view re­quest was ac­cept­ed un­der the strict agree­ment that no top­ic or ques­tion would be off the ta­ble, Guardian Me­dia would have com­plete con­trol over the line of ques­tion­ing, and that the in­ter­view would be aired with­out ed­its.

De­spite the abysmal re­sult, Dr Row­ley has giv­en Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young his full sup­port. “I don’t see a min­is­te­r­i­al change as the re­sponse,” Dr Row­ley as­sert­ed when ques­tioned whether Young would con­tin­ue in the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty post.

“The en­er­gy he brings and the ded­i­ca­tion are what is re­quired,” he con­tin­ued.

He said Min­is­ter Stu­art Young has “a very dif­fi­cult job” but he is sat­is­fied that he is mak­ing the re­quired ef­fort with some room for im­prove­ment. Young is the sec­ond min­is­ter to hold the post, suc­ceed­ing Ed­mund Dil­lon whose tenure was marred by a rise in mur­ders well above the 400 fig­ure.

In the one and a half-hour long sit down, Dr Row­ley would not ad­mit that he and his gov­ern­ment un­der­es­ti­mat­ed the job of get­ting the crime sit­u­a­tion un­der con­trol. ‘If the gov­ern­ment is not part of the so­lu­tion, then it is part of the prob­lem’ was one of Dr Row­ley’s most force­ful state­ments on crime while in op­po­si­tion.

Af­ter fail­ing to re­duce crime in the last four years, we asked whether his own state­ment should be ap­plied to his gov­ern­ment. But Dr Row­ley said it was not ap­plic­a­ble if the gov­ern­ment was “mak­ing the ef­fort that is re­quired.”

PM nev­er smoked weed

De­spite spend­ing many years liv­ing in Ja­maica, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley said he has nev­er smoked mar­i­jua­na.

“No sir,” he re­spond­ed when asked di­rect­ly whether he had ever smoked mar­i­jua­na.

“It was nev­er my am­bi­tion, it is not my am­bi­tion,” he re­spond­ed force­ful­ly in a sit down in­ter­view at White­hall on Fri­day. On De­cem­ber 23rd, the Dan­ger­ous Drugs Act of­fi­cial­ly be­came law, al­low­ing adults to have in their pos­ses­sion up to 30 grammes of mar­i­jua­na and each adult in every home can own up to four plants.

But even with the lax­ing of the laws, Dr. Row­ley had a warn­ing, es­pe­cial­ly for young peo­ple.

“I want to ap­peal to our young peo­ple, es­pe­cial­ly those eas­i­ly in­flu­enced at the high school lev­el, that mar­i­jua­na smok­ing is not to be rec­om­mend­ed,” he said. Ac­cord­ing to him, it is clas­si­fied for good rea­son un­der the head­ing of dan­ger­ous drug be­cause “it could harm you.”

Dr. Row­ley said he has had first-hand ex­pe­ri­ence of peo­ple who have “ru­ined their lives on mar­i­jua­na.”

“It [de­crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion] is not a li­cense to go and burn as many acres as you could,” the PM said.

He de­nied that the leg­is­la­tion was ac­cel­er­at­ed to co­in­cide with the lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions. It is al­so like­ly that the sec­ondary piece of leg­is­la­tion will al­so be passed this year, but dr. Row­ley in­sist­ed none of this was pro­grammed in the con­text of an elec­tion.

De­mon­eti­sa­tion re­vealed ‘un­ac­cept­able be­hav­iour’

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has re­vealed that the $100 de­mon­eti­sa­tion process was a suc­cess as it has ex­posed ‘the lev­el of un­ac­cept­able be­hav­iour of some cit­i­zens in this coun­try.

Dr Row­ley did not pro­vide de­tails about some of the ma­jor find­ings of the ex­er­cise, say­ing there would be a process of re­view. He al­so not­ed that var­i­ous min­istries would ad­dress some of the find­ings di­rect­ly.

‘The ex­er­cise was worth it,’ Dr Row­ley said, adding it was nec­es­sary and placed the coun­try in a much bet­ter po­si­tion to “treat with white-col­lar crime, to treat with el­e­ments of gen­er­al crim­i­nal­i­ty across the coun­try.”

He not­ed that as chair­man of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, he was “ab­solute­ly sat­is­fied” that the de­ci­sion was nec­es­sary.

Cit­i­zens, in­clud­ing the el­der­ly, faced long lines at banks dur­ing the busy Christ­mas sea­son to change over their old cot­ton notes. The gov­ern­ment in­sist­ed it was a mat­ter of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and need­ed to be done ur­gent­ly. The Prime Min­is­ter is of the view that “the ben­e­fits far out­weigh the in­con­ve­nience that some peo­ple would have ex­pe­ri­enced.”

Busi­ness­es com­plained that the ex­er­cise ad­verse­ly af­fect­ed their op­er­a­tions at one of the busiest and most prof­itable pe­ri­ods of the year.

How­ev­er, the Prime Min­is­ter be­lieves the ex­er­cise “meshed” well with the Christ­mas pe­ri­od. Dr Row­ley sug­gest­ed that “a lot of mon­ey that would oth­er­wise not have been brought in­to the econ­o­my came in.” He said many peo­ple who com­ment­ed on the process did not have all the facts as, he said, “many busi­ness hous­es will tell you that they had sur­pris­ing­ly good sales this year.”

Dr Row­ley said no time would have been ide­al for the changeover and the gov­ern­ment had to de­cide on the in­ter­est of the coun­try.