Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

As new­ly ap­point­ed Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les en­ters what has been de­scribed as one of the most chal­leng­ing min­is­te­r­i­al port­fo­lios avail­able, sev­er­al na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty stake­hold­ers are urg­ing him to keep an open mind and be re­cep­tive to ad­vice.

Gon­za­les takes over from Fitzger­ald Hinds who was shift­ed to the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter.

Ac­cord­ing to his pro­file on the Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties web­site, Gon­za­les was a for­mer po­lice of­fi­cer be­fore be­com­ing an at­tor­ney.

He was lat­er as­signed to the Spe­cial An­ti-Crime Unit and was “in­stru­men­tal” in es­tab­lish­ing a Crime Scene In­ves­ti­ga­tion (CSI) acad­e­my at the Cu­mu­to Mil­i­tary Base.

Gon­za­les was al­so a mem­ber of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Ju­nior Ben­jamin con­grat­u­lat­ed Gon­za­les on his ap­point­ment, adding that he looked for­ward to work­ing with him.

Ben­jamin, who vis­it­ed To­ba­go as part of a two-day se­ries of meet­ings with po­lice on the is­land, said while there were no sched­uled meet­ings be­tween him and Gon­za­les, just yet, he in­tend­ed to reach out to him once he re­turned to Trinidad.

“It was a priv­i­lege work­ing with Mr (Fitzger­ald) Hinds and I look for­ward with great an­tic­i­pa­tion to work­ing with our new line min­is­ter, Mr Gon­za­les.

“I am sure he comes with a wealth of ex­pe­ri­ence in na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty as well, so we will con­tin­ue to do our jobs and I am look­ing for­ward to shar­ing with him and be­ing un­der his lead­er­ship in deal­ing with the safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of the na­tion.”

Pres­i­dent of the TTPS So­cial Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion (TTPSS­WA), act­ing ASP Gideon Dick­son, al­so con­grat­u­lat­ed Gon­za­les and said he was op­ti­mistic that his ap­point­ment would strength­en the ef­fi­cien­cy of the min­istry.

“He (Gon­za­les) has demon­strat­ed that he is in fact the trend­set­ter, a mover and a shak­er and he gets things done.

“The record would show he was al­so an ex­cel­lent po­lice of­fi­cer, so he would al­so have some in­sight at the crim­i­nal jus­tice lev­el and the or­gan­i­sa­tion­al lev­el. We feel with those things work­ing, he should be able to bring bet­ter re­la­tions with the ad­min­is­tra­tors or the ex­ec­u­tive of the ser­vice and the as­so­ci­a­tion in terms of get­ting things done on be­half of the po­lice of­fi­cers who we are ex­pect­ed to get things done on be­half of the pub­lic.”

Asked what ad­vice he had to of­fer Gon­za­les, Dick­son urged him to sit and meet with all stake­hold­ers to un­der­stand what could be done to en­hance per­for­mance at all lev­els.

Dick­son al­so said that proac­tive lead­er­ship was need­ed.

“What is ex­pect­ed now more than any­thing else is more ac­tion than talk and I want to say that is re­quired across all sec­tors of so­ci­ety, we need more ac­tion in what we do and this is a gold­en op­por­tu­ni­ty to push the barom­e­ter.”

For­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter and for­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith al­so urged Gon­za­les to take the time to meet and lis­ten to var­i­ous na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty stake­hold­ers, in­clud­ing ju­nior of­fi­cers and as­so­ci­a­tions.

Grif­fith said he was hope­ful that Gon­za­les’ ap­point­ment would bring sta­bil­i­ty to what he de­scribed as a “dis­or­gan­ised and frag­ment­ed” na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty sec­tor.

“Right now they are heav­i­ly de­mo­ti­vat­ed, it’s be­cause of how the pub­lic per­ceives them and he has a tremen­dous job on his shoul­der to try and raise morale among frus­trat­ed of­fi­cers.”

Grif­fith al­so urged Gon­za­les to avoid politi­cis­ing his of­fice as min­is­ter, and main­tain the high­est stan­dards of ac­count­abil­i­ty and pro­fes­sion­al­ism. He added he felt his pre­de­ces­sor Fitzger­ald Hinds was “in­ef­fec­tive” in the role.

The Prison Of­fi­cers As­so­ci­a­tion (PoA) pres­i­dent Ger­ard Gor­don agreed with Grif­fith. He said he was “no fan” of Hinds.

How­ev­er, Gor­don said he was not op­ti­mistic but hope­ful that Gon­za­les would ap­proach the prison ser­vice with an “open mind” and will­ing­ness to un­der­stand the prob­lems fac­ing of­fi­cers.

“He should be able to pro­vide the re­sources and lend sup­port to the var­i­ous di­vi­sions as they go about their var­i­ous du­ties and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties which should all im­pact the cit­i­zens in a pos­i­tive way, not just crime and crim­i­nal­i­ty, but there’s so much more un­der the um­brel­la of the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty. It’s not on­ly crime.”

Re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty con­sul­tant and for­mer di­rec­tor of the Na­tion­al Op­er­a­tions Cen­tre (NOC) Garvin Heer­ah said that Gon­za­les should not be ex­pect­ed to have “all the an­swers” but was con­fi­dent that he has the char­ac­ter to make a sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­ence in the min­istry.