SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Win­ford James views Gov­ern­ment’s move to can­cel the con­tracts of four pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty firms re­tained to pro­vide com­mu­ni­ty pa­trols in res­i­den­tial dis­tricts as sus­pi­cious, cu­ri­ous and a cause for con­cern.

On Tues­day, the pub­lic was ad­vised via a press re­lease by Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young that his min­istry had en­gaged Amal­ga­mat­ed Se­cu­ri­ty Ser­vices Ltd, Al­lied Se­cu­ri­ty Ltd, In­no­v­a­tive Se­cu­ri­ty Tech­nolo­gies Ltd and Pro­tec­tive Agen­cies Ltd to pro­vide mo­bile se­cu­ri­ty pa­trol ser­vices from April 6 to May 5 in var­i­ous res­i­den­tial dis­tricts on a 24-hour ba­sis through­out the coun­try. The move, he said, was to sup­port law en­force­ment of­fi­cers by pro­vid­ing pa­trols and man­pow­er in cer­tain ar­eas. The se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers, Young as­sured, were to have no ad­di­tion­al pow­ers.

How­ev­er, less than 24 hours af­ter the an­nounce­ment, Young, at a press con­fer­ence yes­ter­day, can­celled the plan, say­ing the feed­back from the pub­lic showed they felt safe enough with the work done by the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice. Young al­so de­nied the can­cel­la­tion was due to pub­lic back­lash.

Hours af­ter Young’s state­ment, how­ev­er, James said to have the con­tracts with­drawn hours lat­er was more than “a lit­tle sus­pi­cious.” He said there must have been a lev­el of con­cern at Cab­i­net and the Prime Min­is­ter about the de­ploy­ment of the com­pa­nies, adding ques­tions may have been asked as to why cer­tain com­pa­nies have been ben­e­fit­ing from the State’s cof­fers. James said while the Gov­ern­ment had swift­ly changed its mind, one would ques­tion what trig­gered this.

“This clear­ly has to be seen as a mis­step. But mis­steps are made by gov­ern­ments all the time. But it would ap­pear they have made a mis­take in this case but they are try­ing to re­trieve the sit­u­a­tion as quick­ly as pos­si­ble,” James, not­ing there was cause for con­cern.

“There is a democ­ra­cy we ought to know. We don’t know and we just find it cu­ri­ous that Gov­ern­ment, 24 hours af­ter they came up with a mea­sure for pub­lic safe­ty and com­fort, changes its mind.”

But for­mer brigadier and na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Carl Al­fon­so said he sup­port­ed the pa­trols by the se­cu­ri­ty firms, not­ing they were sim­i­lar to the Com­mu­ni­ty Com­fort Pa­trol pro­gramme in­tro­duced by the last ad­min­is­tra­tion.

“It was a good thing be­cause you would need that as­sis­tance go­ing down the road. This COVID-19 pan­dem­ic is not go­ing to end next week, so law en­force­ment of­fi­cers are go­ing to be ex­tend­ing them­selves. So you need many eyes and ears. We clear­ly could have done with that ad­di­tion­al help,” Al­fon­so said.

He said if Gov­ern­ment even­tu­al­ly calls a state of emer­gency dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, more hands will al­so be need­ed and the se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers could have as­sist­ed.

“What is hap­pen­ing in coun­tries where the virus is spread­ing ... you are go­ing to get peo­ple be­hav­ing bad­ly. Law en­force­ment has to be on top of the sit­u­a­tion, we don’t have a choice, we just have to put many mea­sures in place to avoid any fall­out.”

Al­fon­so said the way the con­tracts were pulled will sure­ly leave ques­tions hang­ing.

“You are damned if you don’t and damn if you do,” he said.

For­mer Na­tion­al Op­er­a­tions Cen­tre ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor Garvin Heer­ah al­so said the ini­tia­tive was wel­comed but said it lacked man­age­r­i­al ap­proach­es, co­or­di­na­tion, re­search and plan­ning which left him “dis­ap­point­ed.” He said an as­sis­tant po­lice com­mis­sion­er should have part­nered with the se­cu­ri­ty firms to en­gage in a com­mu­ni­ty im­pact as­sess­ment to reach out to res­i­dents in ar­eas that stood to ben­e­fit from the pa­trols.

“The en­tire op­er­a­tion should have been in­te­grat­ed with an emer­gency call sys­tem,” he said, adding such a move would have dif­fer­en­ti­at­ed what calls the po­lice and se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers can re­spond to.

“Ob­vi­ous­ly, this need­ed to be ad­dressed be­fore en­gag­ing the ini­tia­tive.”

Heer­ah al­so said the fact that the pub­lic found out about the ini­tia­tive via a press re­lease left much to be de­sired and showed the de­ci­sion to hire the firms was “rushed” and not care­ful­ly thought out.

“You can­not just spring a sur­prise on a com­mu­ni­ty. It has to be some­thing that is in­tro­duced con­sul­ta­tive­ly.”

Heer­ah said the con­tracts could have been pulled be­cause of some back­lash or Gov­ern­ment buck­ling un­der pub­lic pres­sure, but said he be­lieves there is more in the mor­tar than the pes­tle with the con­tracts.

“It is clear to see that for some rea­son or the oth­er the pub­lic was not com­fort­able with it at the time. In an ef­fort of sat­is­fy­ing the na­tion, they pulled back. If the Gov­ern­ment buck­les un­der such a pres­sure, one would hate to think what is go­ing to hap­pen in the fu­ture when oth­er se­ri­ous is­sues are fac­ing them.”