The Leader of the Op­po­si­tion, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar SC MP, has filed a mo­tion of no con­fi­dence in Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter, Stu­art Young MP.

Ac­cord­ing to a re­lease is­sued by the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC), the mo­tion has the sup­port of all 19 Op­po­si­tion Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment.

The mo­tion ar­gues that Min­is­ter Young has failed “to faith­ful­ly dis­charge his du­ties to the peo­ple of this na­tion”, cit­ing poor bor­der se­cu­ri­ty, the ex­emp­tion process and closed bor­ders strand­ing na­tion­als abroad dur­ing the COVID-19 cri­sis, and unchecked il­le­gal im­mi­gra­tion by Venezue­lans, among oth­er is­sues.

The full text of the UNC state­ment fol­lows…

OP­PO­SI­TION LEADER FILES MO­TION OF NO CON­FI­DENCE IN MIN­IS­TER OF NA­TION­AL SE­CU­RI­TY, STU­ART YOUNG

Leader of the Opposition, Kamla Persad-Bissessar SC MP. (Image courtesy Parliament of Trinidad and Tobago)

Leader of the Op­po­si­tion, the Ho­n­ourable Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, SC, MP, has filed a mo­tion of no con­fi­dence in the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, Stu­art Young. 

Mr. Young’s fail­ure to faith­ful­ly dis­charge his du­ties to the peo­ple of this na­tion as their Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, has com­pelled the Op­po­si­tion to take ac­tion.

Since his ap­point­ment as Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, Min­is­ter Young has been re­spon­si­ble for one dis­as­ter af­ter an­oth­er. These in­clude the chaot­ic and poor­ly con­ceived mi­grant reg­is­tra­tion pol­i­cy, the rapid de­te­ri­o­ra­tion of se­cu­ri­ty of our na­tion­al bor­ders, and the se­cret award of pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty con­tracts. 

The con­fused and mud­dled man­ner in which Min­is­ter Young con­tin­ues to pre­side over  the Gov­ern­ment's ex­emp­tion process rep­re­sents a new low for him­self.  The ne­ces­si­ty of this mo­tion is un­der­scored by the dra­con­ian and au­thor­i­tar­i­an de­ci­sion to keep our bor­ders closed to cit­i­zens, leav­ing tens of thou­sands of na­tion­als strand­ed abroad and mak­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go the on­ly na­tion in the en­tire world where na­tion­als re­quire an ex­emp­tion di­rect­ly from a Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter to re­turn home. This Min­is­te­r­i­al au­thor­i­tar­i­an­ism is un­ac­cept­able and un­con­sti­tu­tion­al.

The man­ner in which the ex­emp­tion process has al­so been con­duct­ed is ev­i­dent­ly rid­dled with dis­crim­i­na­tion, in­equal­i­ty and un­fair­ness. As we have ob­served over the past few months, many cit­i­zens have been in­ex­plic­a­bly de­layed and giv­en the runaround by the Min­is­ter, while close fam­i­ly mem­bers of the PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion seem to ex­pe­ri­ence no prob­lem with se­cur­ing ex­emp­tions.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the in­flux of Venezue­lan mi­grants has been al­lowed to per­sist with no im­me­di­ate at­ten­tion placed on bor­der man­age­ment, even as Venezue­lan pi­rates have been ad­ver­tis­ing their trips to and from Trinidad open­ly on so­cial me­dia. We charge that Stu­art Young has sab­o­taged our na­tion’s bor­der se­cu­ri­ty by pre­vent­ing the use of mul­ti­ple air and naval as­sets be­cause they were pur­chased un­der a UNC-led Gov­ern­ment.

The lack of prop­er bor­der se­cu­ri­ty has al­lowed a grow­ing hu­man- and weapons-traf­fick­ing net­work to flour­ish with the ef­fects fur­ther crip­pling our na­tion.

Mr. Stu­art Young has proven him­self to be the most in­com­pe­tent, in­ef­fec­tive - even bor­der­ing on dan­ger­ous - Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty to ever hold of­fice. Every day he re­mains in of­fice is a fur­ther threat to our safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty as cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

A full case will be pre­sent­ed in the Par­lia­ment out­lin­ing every de­tail and every in­stance where he has placed the se­cu­ri­ty and rep­u­ta­tion of our na­tion at risk.

All 19 Op­po­si­tion Mem­bers Par­lia­ment stand firm­ly in sup­port of this mo­tion giv­en the tur­moil and grave dan­ger our con­stituents and, by ex­ten­sion, all cit­i­zens face on a dai­ly ba­sis. 

For the sake of our na­tion­al well-be­ing, we pray that our col­leagues on the Gov­ern­ment side will see Mr Young for what he tru­ly is – a clear and present dan­ger to the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go.