Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

Re­in­forc­ing the promise she made just two days ear­li­er, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar yes­ter­day again as­sured the na­tion that with­in six months, the coun­try will wit­ness a marked de­cline in crime and crim­i­nal­i­ty. She main­tained that the tar­get is both re­al­is­tic and achiev­able, giv­en the re­sources her ad­min­is­tra­tion has at its dis­pos­al.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar first made the vow to work to­ward a “safer and hap­pi­er” Trinidad and To­ba­go dur­ing her swear­ing-in ad­dress on Thurs­day af­ter­noon.

Speak­ing with re­porters fol­low­ing the swear­ing-in of her Cab­i­net in the ball­room of the Pres­i­dent’s House, Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar reaf­firmed her com­mit­ment.

Re­fer­ring to her tenure as head of the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment from 2010 to 2015, she ar­gued that the then gov­ern­ment achieved one of the low­est crime rates in re­cent his­to­ry and was con­fi­dent it could be done again, es­pe­cial­ly with the lat­est de­vel­op­ments in tech­nol­o­gy.

She main­tained that she was al­so con­fi­dent in the abil­i­ties of Min­is­ter of De­fence Wayne Sturge and Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Roger Alexan­der, whose man­dates were sim­i­lar in terms of crime-fight­ing.

But while Sturge and Alexan­der would play a cen­tral role in se­cu­ri­ty, she al­so said oth­er stake­hold­ers would be called to lend help.

“So don’t just look at Sturge and Roger Alexan­der; the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al is a very im­por­tant of­fice in the fight against crime, and should it be­come nec­es­sary, we do have a lot of oth­er per­sons who have com­mit­ted to work­ing with us, es­pe­cial­ly in the area of tech­nol­o­gy, to help us in that fight against crime.

“To­day I am very con­fi­dent that we will give it every­thing we have, be­cause that is the num­ber one pri­or­i­ty in our coun­try.”

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter ready to work

When Guardian Me­dia spoke with Alexan­der af­ter the cer­e­mo­ny, he vowed to bring a strong work eth­ic “to get­ting the job done”.

Alexan­der ex­plained that the Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty will be specif­i­cal­ly re­spon­si­ble for the se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies in T&T.

The term home­land se­cu­ri­ty was first coined in the US af­ter the Sep­tem­ber 11, 2001, ter­ror­ist at­tacks and was used to em­pha­sise the pro­tec­tion of that coun­try’s ter­ri­to­ry and peo­ple from sim­i­lar vi­o­lence.

Alexan­der said he looked for­ward to a “good work­ing re­la­tion­ship” with Sturge, who worked as a crim­i­nal de­fence at­tor­ney be­fore, not­ing that they have had pos­i­tive in­ter­ac­tions in the past.

“So Mr Sturge and I will get to­geth­er on Mon­day or over the week­end and have a con­ver­sa­tion on how we go for­ward, and as soon as that is com­plet­ed, we will come be­fore the pub­lic and have a con­ver­sa­tion about that.”

He al­so said that Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s six-month goal was achiev­able.

a more se­cure coun­try in six months was achiev­able once every cit­i­zen got in­volved and worked to­wards it.

“Trinidad and To­ba­go is a ship that has tak­en a new course. You can be on the ship and help that ship con­tin­ue go­ing for­ward, or if you’re a crim­i­nal el­e­ment and are on the ship and are in­tent on mak­ing peo­ple’s lives mis­er­able, we will do every­thing in our pow­er to throw you over­board, even if it’s in shark-in­fest­ed wa­ters.”

Alexan­der, who re­signed as a se­nior su­per­in­ten­dent of po­lice ear­li­er this year, said he did not an­tic­i­pate any “awk­ward in­ter­ac­tions” with se­nior of­fi­cers whom he would now be act­ing as line min­is­ter.

“I don’t look at that; it’s all about work­ing to­geth­er to make the in­sti­tu­tion bet­ter.

“Who­ev­er feels bit­ter ... I have moved away from that feel­ing or what­ev­er en­coun­ters I have with peo­ple, so I in­tend to make the in­sti­tu­tion bet­ter than be­fore.”

Re­spond­ing to promis­es from Per­sad-Bisses­sar to ini­ti­ate stand-your-ground leg­is­la­tion and home in­va­sion leg­is­la­tion to strength­en the crime fight, Alexan­der said he was in sup­port of any laws that would pro­tect the na­tion.