Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath have hit back at the Op­po­si­tion, fol­low­ing crit­i­cism that Gov­ern­ment mem­bers at­tend­ed re­cent Caribbean Pre­mier League (CPL) match­es de­spite al­leged na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty threats, the same con­cerns that led to the can­cel­la­tion of the In­de­pen­dence Day mil­i­tary pa­rade.

On Tues­day, Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral MP Symon de No­bri­ga ques­tioned how come the Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, in­clud­ing Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Khadi­jah Ameen, Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath and De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge man­aged to at­tend CPL match­es at the Bri­an Lara Sta­di­um in Tarou­ba de­spite the as­sas­si­na­tion threats loom­ing over them.

“It is fun­ny to me that, sub­se­quent to that an­nounce­ment, mem­bers of the Cab­i­net found them­selves in very pub­lic sit­u­a­tions where there would have been very lit­tle con­trol over the gath­er­ing around them, so whether that be CPL or their own UNC ac­tiv­i­ties, when it comes to their pub­lic meet­ings, there were no con­cerns for safe­ty at that point. I don’t know how you jux­ta­pose that to a sit­u­a­tion where there was a very con­trolled en­vi­ron­ment with every arm of the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus. I don’t un­der­stand how on one hand you cite se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns, and on the oth­er hand, you sit­ting in stands at the sta­di­um,” de No­bri­ga said.

Ad­dress­ing this yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, the Prime Min­is­ter dis­missed the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s stance, turn­ing the spot­light in­stead on what she de­scribed as fi­nan­cial mis­man­age­ment by PNM-con­trolled cor­po­ra­tions dur­ing In­de­pen­dence cel­e­bra­tions.

“I think the PNM should con­cen­trate on get­ting their cor­po­ra­tions to ac­count for the mon­ey they shame­less­ly wast­ed on fete­ing and rum drink­ing un­der the guise of cel­e­brat­ing in­de­pen­dence. If the PNM MPs want to fete and drink rum, they should spend their mon­ey and not use the cor­po­ra­tions’ mon­ey,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

“These same PNM cor­po­ra­tions, who were cry­ing about no funds for garbage dis­pos­al, grass cut­ting, and em­ploy­ment, found mon­ey to pro­vide free rum and free food for the PNM MPs to fete. I hope that just as they found mon­ey for fete­ing and rum drink­ing, they find mon­ey for look­ing af­ter their burgess­es.”

Al­so con­tact­ed, Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath not­ed that law en­force­ment of­fi­cials, who pro­vide close se­cu­ri­ty ser­vices, rec­om­mend whether or not to at­tend events.

“I at­tend­ed a pub­lic event for a few hours where peo­ple were scanned and checked; it was a con­trolled en­vi­ron­ment. Fur­ther, Min­is­ter Ameen and I have pub­licly said that we will not be de­terred from car­ry­ing out our pub­lic du­ties, even though we con­tin­ue to take the nec­es­sary pre­cau­tions,” Padarath said.

He fur­ther not­ed that ac­tions are guid­ed by se­cu­ri­ty mech­a­nisms.

“The Op­po­si­tion knows very well that there is an agency that han­dles se­cu­ri­ty arrange­ments for pub­lic of­fi­cials who might be at risk. They were once in the same po­si­tion. We didn’t seek to play pol­i­tics with their se­cu­ri­ty arrange­ments.”

Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro yes­ter­day told Guardian Me­dia that all nec­es­sary se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures were tak­en to en­sure the safe­ty of not just cit­i­zens but pub­lic of­fi­cials at the CPL match­es over the week­end.

“While I un­der­stand the pub­lic’s con­cern, I must cau­tion against con­flat­ing vis­i­bil­i­ty with vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty. Pub­lic of­fi­cials just like you and I are free to en­gage in any ac­tiv­i­ties, and it is the du­ty of the TTPS to en­sure such en­gage­ments do not com­pro­mise pub­lic safe­ty,” Gue­var­ro said.

He main­tained that fear will not dic­tate the pub­lic’s ac­cess to na­tion­al events.

“The TTPS con­duct­ed a com­pre­hen­sive threat, risk, and vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty as­sess­ment ahead of all CPL match­es and there­after de­ployed a mul­ti-lay­ered se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus to safe­guard every at­tendee, in­clud­ing pub­lic of­fi­cials. The pres­ence of Gov­ern­ment min­is­ters at these was fac­tored in­to our op­er­a­tional plan­ning, which in­clud­ed as­pects of our se­cu­ri­ty plan­ning.”

Mean­while, for­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith told Guardian Me­dia that there were fac­tors that con­tributed to the TTPS’ han­dling of the sit­u­a­tion in light of the al­leged death threats.

“We are not aware of the death threats, the po­lice have not stat­ed it and right­ly so. This could very well be a sit­u­a­tion where, here was a threat and a spe­cif­ic plan to tar­get a gov­ern­ment of­fi­cial at a spe­cif­ic time, say the In­de­pen­dence Day Pa­rade, and now that the threat does not ex­ist, be­cause ei­ther the in­di­vid­ual who might have been the pos­si­ble sniper, I’m just giv­ing an ex­am­ple, could have left the coun­try or ar­rest­ed or neu­tralised. So, we do not know the sit­u­a­tion.”