Renu­ka Singh

Gov­ern­ment has reignit­ed the Com­mu­ni­ty Com­fort Pa­trol (CCP) ini­tia­tive pi­lot­ed by Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith in 2014 when he was the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, to as­sist po­lice of­fi­cers dur­ing the Stay-at-Home pe­ri­od.

How­ev­er, the Min­istry said that “the pa­trols be­ing pro­vid­ed by the pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty firms, have no ad­di­tion­al pow­ers out­side of their nor­mal pow­ers as pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers, per­form­ing pri­vate neigh­bour­hood pa­trols.”

Cur­rent Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Stu­art Young said that the four pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty com­pa­nies--Amal­ga­mat­ed, Al­lied, In­no­v­a­tive Tech­nolo­gies and Pro­tec­tive Agen­cies--were the same ones se­lect­ed back in 2014 when the CCP ini­tia­tive was launched.

“The iden­ti­cal neigh­bour­hoods se­lect­ed in 2014 to be pa­trolled are the ones be­ing pa­trolled and im­por­tant­ly this is be­ing done at a cheap­er cost than 2014,” Young said.

He did not re­spond to sub­se­quent ques­tions about the cost of the ini­tia­tive.

Be­fore Young con­firmed that the CCP pro­gramme was re­vi­talised, Guardian Me­dia re­ceived a copy of in­struc­tions giv­en to po­lice which in­struct­ed of­fi­cers to “sup­ply one of­fi­cer to pa­trol with Amal­ga­mat­ed Se­cu­ri­ty in your dis­trict from 8 pm to 11 pm and one of­fi­cer from 2 am to 5 am. You are al­so to in­form NDOC of the pa­trol, its du­ra­tion, the ve­hi­cle num­ber and call sign.”

Be­fore the Min­istry con­firmed that four com­pa­nies were re­tained, Guardian Me­dia re­ceived re­ports from res­i­dents at a pri­vate hous­ing com­plex in Cunu­pia, Sa­van­nah Vil­las in Aran­juez and from res­i­dents in Ari­ma that Amal­ga­mat­ed se­cu­ri­ty ve­hi­cles were slow­ly pa­trolling the area, some with flash­ing lights.

The lack of com­mu­ni­ca­tion to the pub­lic caused pan­ic at Sa­van­nah Vil­las on Mon­day night when Amal­ga­mat­ed se­cu­ri­ty per­son­nel at­tempt­ed to en­ter the com­pound and was de­nied en­try by com­pound se­cu­ri­ty. Ac­cord­ing to in­for­ma­tion ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, the po­lice lat­er in­formed com­pound se­cu­ri­ty that the pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty firm was part of the State’s “com­fort pa­trol”.

Guardian Me­dia then sent the fol­low­ing ques­tions to the Young, the Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary at the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris-Al Rawi and Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley in his ca­pac­i­ty as head of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil.

1. What does the pro­vi­sion of com­fort pa­trol en­tail?

2. When was Amal­ga­mat­ed re­tained by the State/Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty?

3. What is the du­ra­tion of this con­tract/agree­ment?

4. Is Amal­ga­mat­ed util­is­ing its pri­vate ve­hi­cles for this ser­vice or are they ac­com­pa­ny­ing of­fi­cers in po­lice ve­hi­cles?

5. What is the cost of this con­tract?

6. Has any oth­er pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty com­pa­ny been en­gaged to as­sist or is this sole­ly an agree­ment be­tween the state and ASSL?

While there was no re­sponse from the min­is­ters and the Prime Min­is­ter, the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty is­sued a me­dia state­ment con­firm­ing that pa­trols had be­gun and would last un­til May 5, 2020.

Di­rec­tor of the Amal­ga­mat­ed Se­cu­ri­ty Ser­vices Ltd (ASSL) John Aboud and man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of Al­lied Se­cu­ri­ty Michael Nicholas both con­firmed that their re­spec­tive com­pa­ny has been re­tained by the Gov­ern­ment.

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed both Aboud and Nicholas be­fore the Min­istry’s con­fir­ma­tion.

Aboud yes­ter­day con­firmed that the com­pa­ny was re­tained by the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and di­rect­ed all ques­tions to that Min­istry.

“Those ques­tions re­al­ly should be di­rect­ed to the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty,” he said.

“All I can tell you is that there are a num­ber of se­cu­ri­ty com­pa­nies in­volved in the ex­er­cise, it is not Amal­ga­mat­ed alone, sev­er­al com­pa­nies are in­volved in this ini­tia­tive by the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty,” Aboud said.

“Oth­er than that I am not at lib­er­ty to tell you much be­cause the client would have to tell you about it but the ex­er­cise to keep eyes and ears out there,” he said adding that “sev­er­al com­pa­nies in­volved”.

Aboud said he com­mu­ni­cat­ed with the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty af­ter ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia.

“The Min­istry should an­swer you, I sent an email and I’m telling them that the press is ask­ing us ques­tions and I asked them to give us di­rec­tions,” he said.

“I am hap­py to an­swer all the ques­tions be­cause there is noth­ing un­to­ward in terms of not be­ing able to an­swer but out of re­spect for the client, I think they client should an­swer, be­cause I think what they’re do­ing is a good thing,” he said.

Nicholas con­firmed the new arrange­ment.

“It is sim­ply a re-es­tab­lish­ment of a pre­vi­ous ex­er­cise we did for the gov­ern­ment a few years ago,” he said.

“It’s on­ly short term,” Nicholas said.

He said the se­cu­ri­ty com­pa­nies were ex­pect­ed to as­sist with help­ing en­force some of the new re­stric­tions brought on by the COVID-19 is­sue.

The Min­istry did not say what this ini­tia­tive is cost­ing the State.

“This ini­tia­tive is be­ing em­ployed in or­der to en­hance the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty re­sponse and sup­port re­cent mea­sures in­sti­tut­ed by the Gov­ern­ment,” the re­lease said.

The ini­tia­tive is ex­pect­ed to “mit­i­gate the spread of the COVID-19 virus”.

“These pa­trols shall be con­duct­ed in res­i­den­tial com­mu­ni­ties us­ing marked ve­hi­cles and shall main­tain re­al-time com­mu­ni­ca­tions with the Na­tion­al Op­er­a­tions Fu­sion Cen­tre (NOFC),” the re­lease stat­ed.

“This ini­tia­tive will be mon­i­tored for qual­i­ty and its op­er­at­ing pa­ra­me­ters ad­just­ed ac­cord­ing­ly as nec­es­sary,” the press state­ment said.

Grif­fith, in a sub­se­quent in­ter­view, said that the se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers were not pro­vid­ed with any new au­thor­i­ty. They were in­struct­ed to pa­trol is res­i­den­tial ar­eas, out­side of the known “hot-spots” and to call the po­lice di­rect­ly if need be.

He al­so said that all se­cu­ri­ty per­son­nel must check-in at the dis­trict po­lice sta­tions to log in with their name, area of pa­trol and du­ra­tion of pa­trol.

“They were not giv­en any ad­di­tion­al au­thor­i­ty. They will act as a de­ter­rent be­cause of the high vis­i­bil­i­ty and would act as ad­di­tion­al eyes and ears with­in com­mu­ni­ties,” he said.

“The TTPS was asked to pa­trol and lock down the en­tire coun­try and they are help­ing us keep an eye out,” he said.