DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath says threats against his life will not pre­vent him from car­ry­ing out his pub­lic du­ties or at­tend­ing com­mu­ni­ty events, stress­ing that the in­creased se­cu­ri­ty around him was ini­ti­at­ed by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) and not re­quest­ed by him.

Padarath made the com­ments in re­sponse to crit­i­cism over his con­tin­ued at­ten­dance at pub­lic events, in­clud­ing a World Cup fi­nal view­ing, af­ter re­ports emerged that his se­cu­ri­ty de­tail had been in­creased due to cred­i­ble threats.

He said the de­ci­sion to en­hance his se­cu­ri­ty fol­lowed an as­sess­ment by the TTPS Spe­cial Branch and was linked to both the of­fice he holds and in­ves­ti­ga­tions con­nect­ed to mat­ters un­der his min­istry.

“These se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns were nev­er raised by my­self, and I want to make that abun­dant­ly clear. I did not raise these se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns. These mat­ters were brought to my at­ten­tion by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice, the head of the Spe­cial Branch,” Padarath said.

He said po­lice ad­vised him that the threats were con­sid­ered se­ri­ous enough to war­rant ad­di­tion­al pro­tec­tion.

Padarath added that his great­est con­cern was not his own safe­ty, but that of his fam­i­ly, not­ing that while he re­ceives State pro­tec­tion as a pub­lic of­fice-hold­er, his rel­a­tives do not.

“I am of­ten more con­cerned about the safe­ty of my young child. I think like any oth­er par­ent, and that con­tin­ues to be at the fore­front of my mind in terms of en­sur­ing safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty,” he said.

The min­is­ter said he has since arranged pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty for his fam­i­ly at his own ex­pense.

“Safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty was not pro­vid­ed for my fam­i­ly. It’s pro­vid­ed for me as the sub­stan­tive of­fice-hold­er. I know in the past that oth­er mem­bers who served as min­is­ters in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, and in oth­er po­si­tions, their fam­i­lies re­ceived se­cu­ri­ty.

“I nev­er asked for se­cu­ri­ty for mine. Nei­ther was se­cu­ri­ty of­fered for mine. In­stead, I have tak­en the nec­es­sary steps to en­sure that pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty has been arranged, which I fi­nance out of my own pock­et,” he said.

Padarath said he ac­cepts that hold­ing pub­lic of­fice can at­tract threats, par­tic­u­lar­ly when gov­ern­ment ac­tions af­fect en­trenched in­ter­ests.

He point­ed to on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­volv­ing the Com­mu­ni­ty-based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme (CEPEP), which falls un­der his min­istry, say­ing ef­forts to dis­man­tle al­leged crim­i­nal in­flu­ence could pro­voke re­tal­i­a­tion.

How­ev­er, he said he would not spec­u­late on whether any po­lit­i­cal ac­tors were con­nect­ed to the threats.

“Whether or not there’s po­lit­i­cal in­volve­ment from politi­cians on the oth­er side, that will be left up to in­ves­ti­ga­tors to de­ter­mine the cred­i­bil­i­ty of that,” he said.

De­spite the height­ened se­cu­ri­ty arrange­ments, Padarath said he has no in­ten­tion of with­draw­ing from pub­lic life.

“I have tak­en the po­si­tion that I can’t live in a bub­ble all the time. While you do have se­cu­ri­ty with you, you can’t for­sake your pro­file. Most events I am at are con­stituen­cy events, whether it’s foot­ball, crick­et, etc. That is part of your re­spon­si­bil­i­ty as a Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment and as a min­is­ter of gov­ern­ment at­tend­ing pub­lic events.

“Like many oth­er min­is­ters or pub­lic of­fi­cials who have held the po­si­tion that I’ve held be­fore, it did not pre­vent them from at­tend­ing these events. You just take ex­tra pre­cau­tion,” he said.

Padarath said at­ten­dance at pub­lic events is of­ten guid­ed by in­tel­li­gence as­sess­ments from Spe­cial Branch of­fi­cers, who ad­vise whether venues or events are safe.

He said se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers are fre­quent­ly de­ployed in plain clothes and mem­bers of the pub­lic are of­ten un­aware of the mea­sures in place.

The min­is­ter ac­knowl­edged that the arrange­ments have changed his dai­ly life but said he con­sid­ers them a nec­es­sary ad­just­ment and will con­tin­ue to fund pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty for his loved ones if re­quired.

“I’ll tell you this: if that is re­quired, I’m pre­pared to do it. I don’t think you can put a price on the life of the peo­ple who are clos­est to you.

“For me to have a sense of safe­ty, se­cu­ri­ty and peace of mind, I’d rather put that arrange­ment in place than be sor­ry there­after,” he said.

Padarath said he will con­tin­ue to fol­low the ad­vice of of­fi­cers as­signed to his pro­tec­tion while re­main­ing en­gaged with the pub­lic.