Akash Sama­roo

The T&T Po­lice Ser­vice is yet to con­firm if it is in­ves­ti­gat­ing a “high UNC of­fi­cial” for at­tempt­ing to pay a hit­man $60,000 to com­mit mur­der. How­ev­er, the Op­po­si­tion Leader said the en­tire thing reeks of a hoax for po­lit­i­cal gain.

Dur­ing his con­tri­bu­tion to the bud­get de­bate on Tues­day, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds claimed, “A crim­i­nal in this coun­try, swore to the po­lice that a UNC high of­fi­cial, paid him $60,000 to com­mit a mur­der out­side. That mat­ter is un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion, who want to go and find out could go.”

Guardian Me­dia at­tempt­ed to as­cer­tain from the TTPS if any such in­ves­ti­ga­tion oc­curred or is on­go­ing. Yes­ter­day morn­ing, a se­nior TTPS of­fi­cial said checks were be­ing made to ver­i­fy the min­is­ter’s claim. How­ev­er, up to yes­ter­day evening, the TTPS still could not pro­vide an an­swer. Ques­tions were al­so sent to its cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions unit, but there was no re­sponse. Ef­forts to con­tact Hinds for more in­for­ma­tion on his claims were fu­tile as he did not re­spond to What­sApp mes­sages.

But the Op­po­si­tion Leader had plen­ty to say.

Ini­tial­ly dis­miss­ing Hinds’ al­le­ga­tion as, “elec­tion time non­sense” and an­oth­er it­er­a­tion of the email­gate con­tro­ver­sy, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar went on to ve­he­ment­ly de­ny that any mem­ber of her par­ty is in­volved in such an in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

“No UNC of­fi­cial is un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion to the best of my knowl­edge. No Na­tex mem­ber. No coun­cil­lor or al­der­man. No con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber. No UNC of­fi­cial,” she de­clared.

The Op­po­si­tion Leader said even if an in­ves­ti­ga­tion was tak­ing place, Min­is­ter Hinds would have im­ped­ed the po­lice’s work by mak­ing that state­ment in the Low­er House.

“If there is any in­ves­ti­ga­tion, it’s al­ready taint­ed with bias and in­ter­fer­ence, the al­le­ga­tions are from a known crim­i­nal who strange­ly ap­proached Hinds, a po­lit­i­cal dunce. That is how des­per­ate the PNM has reached, where the min­is­ter is mak­ing re­ports to force in­ves­ti­ga­tions about po­lit­i­cal op­po­nents for elec­tion­eer­ing,” she posit­ed.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er now has ques­tions to an­swer on this mat­ter.

“How do Mr Hinds and Mr Young know the de­tails of this sup­posed in­ves­ti­ga­tion? The CoP and TTPS must an­swer that ques­tion. Mr Hinds and Min­is­ter Young have tipped off the sus­pect in the sup­posed in­ves­ti­ga­tion. Why would a crim­i­nal ap­proach Min­is­ter Hinds? And how would Min­is­ter Young know as­pects of the sup­posed in­ves­ti­ga­tion if Hinds re­port­ed it to the po­lice? This is a whole cha­rade from a bunch of fail­ures,” she said.

As Hinds made his claims on Tues­day, MP and Min­is­ter Stu­art Young, who once held the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty port­fo­lio, was heard say­ing “a for­mer sen­a­tor,” as Min­is­ter Hinds said the po­lice was look­ing in­to the mat­ter. Young al­so chimed in “the prison”.

‘65 per cent of al­lo­ca­tion goes to salaries’

Min­is­ter Hinds on Tues­day al­so de­fend­ed the al­most $60 bil­lion his min­istry has re­ceived in the last nine years.

“The fig­ures and sta­tis­tics in our bud­getary arrange­ment demon­strate that as much as 65 per cent of the al­lo­ca­tions we read about would nor­mal­ly go for salaries, emol­u­ments and oth­er re­cur­rent ex­pen­di­ture like rents and all these things, sta­tionery and all the things the Gov­ern­ment pur­chas­es to ser­vice these min­istries,” Hinds ex­plained.

He added, “So, I just want the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go to know, when the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion says $60 bil­lion, of that $60 bil­lion, near to $40 bil­lion is spent and if you want to see where that $40 bil­lion goes you have to look in peo­ple’s cred­it unions and bank ac­counts and their cars and what they do with their per­son­al mon­ey.”

Con­cern­ing youth in­volve­ment in crime, Hinds stressed there is no short­age of cor­rect and prop­er path­ways for young peo­ple in this coun­try.

“The en­tire ef­fort and the bud­get for the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion is for the youth of this coun­try in the for­mal ed­u­ca­tion sec­tor. The Min­istry of Sport and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment an al­lo­ca­tion of $400 mil­lion, large­ly for the young peo­ple in T&T. The Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices, $5.6 bil­lion, ben­e­fit­ing homes and fam­i­lies, large­ly for young peo­ple,” Hinds ar­gued.

He added, “And not to men­tion the Min­istry of Youth De­vel­op­ment and Na­tion­al Ser­vice, every­thing it does is di­rect­ed to­wards the youth of this coun­try.”

Hinds said, there­fore, youth in­volve­ment in crime goes deep­er than a lack of Gov­ern­ment in­ter­ven­tion.

The min­is­ter said he is al­so grow­ing weary of a sin­gle ad­min­is­tra­tion be­ing blamed for the state of crime in this coun­try.

Hinds said just as mem­bers of the pub­lic took a per­son­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to re­duce the spread of in­fec­tions dur­ing COVID-19, that same prin­ci­ple must ap­ply.

“So it is in­tel­lec­tu­al­ly mori­bund to sug­gest that he is re­spon­si­ble for mur­ders. I dis­like hear­ing al­to­geth­er, ‘how much mur­ders un­der that gov­ern­ment?’ It ain’t have noth­ing to do with that. And that is why when I was in Op­po­si­tion no­body could find a record of Fitzger­ald Hinds say­ing that the UNC is to be blamed.”