Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

SOS for so­lu­tions

Whether Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley presents an an­ti-crime plan, pro­posed an­ti-crime leg­is­la­tion or man­pow­er changes at his me­dia brief­ing to­day, an “SOS” for swift so­lu­tions has been clear­ly is­sued from var­i­ous sec­tors re­gard­ing T&T’s crime wave.

What ma­te­ri­alis­es will be known when Row­ley holds his me­dia brief­ing on na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty at White­hall, even as T&T had record­ed 45 mur­ders up to yes­ter­day in the week be­fore Car­ni­val 2024.

Last Fri­day, Row­ley, de­tail­ing the out­comes of his re­cent US se­cu­ri­ty meet­ings, said he’d ad­dress is­sues, in­clud­ing last week’s state­ments be­fore a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee by Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher, that she had failed to meet any an­ti-crime tar­gets last year.

To­day’s brief­ing aris­es af­ter Row­ley’s US trip, where he met top se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cials and ob­tained as­sis­tance for T&T, in­clud­ing in ma­rine op­er­a­tions, cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty and for a gun in­tel­li­gence unit. Row­ley al­so met the Fed­er­al Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions (FBI) and Cen­tral In­tel­li­gence Agency.

Gov­ern­ment sources yes­ter­day hint­ed the PM will “lev­el” with the pub­lic but didn’t say if he’ll an­nounce planned an­ti-crime bills af­ter he said last week that “in­ter­est­ing mat­ters” will be com­ing to the Par­lia­ment ahead.

Af­ter the Bail bill failed in 2022 due to lack of Op­po­si­tion and In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors’ sup­port, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour not­ed dur­ing the 2024 Bud­get de­bate that “com­pre­hen­sive ­bail-ref­or­ma­tion leg­isla­tive pack­age with a mul­ti-­pronged ap­proach” was be­ing worked on.

T&T Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Roger Roach yes­ter­day said they hope the PM will come with sol­id crime plans.

“We hope to hear some of the tac­ti­cal strate­gies and op­er­a­tions that would be im­ple­ment­ed in the short­est pos­si­ble time­frame to re­duce the cur­rent state of vi­o­lent crimes and mur­ders in our coun­try. We al­so want to get an up­date and some clar­i­ty on the longer-term strate­gies that will ad­dress crime at its root cause,” Roach said.

Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance leader Gary Grif­fith added, “At this point of the crime cri­sis in T&T, what we—and un­doubt­ed­ly the pub­lic too—doesn’t want to hear is more bad talk­ing par­ties and at­tack­ing—no more ‘Kam­la, Kam­la, Kam­la!’ and ‘Gary, Gary, Gary!’ What every­one wants is so­lu­tions.

“What T&T wants to hear are new poli­cies, strate­gies, tech­nolo­gies and oth­er av­enues that can be set up in the short to medi­um pe­ri­od to deal with the haem­or­rhag­ing of T&T—now drown­ing in blood.”

For­mer Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship (PP) min­is­ter Vas­ant Bharath said, “The coun­try is now fed-up and frus­trat­ed with the emp­ty promis­es made by the Prime Min­is­ter, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter and Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice to deal with the out-of-con­trol vi­o­lent crime, mur­ders, home in­va­sions. I sus­pect the PM’s press con­fer­ence will be ‘more of the same,’ said be­fore leav­ing the pop­u­la­tion in a height­ened state of anx­i­ety.

“Cit­i­zens de­serve more than emp­ty promis­es and in­ef­fec­tive mea­sures. The cur­rent state of af­fairs sug­gests a stag­ger­ing fail­ure on the part of the au­thor­i­ties to tack­le es­ca­lat­ing crime rates. The PM must take im­me­di­ate de­ci­sive ac­tion to ad­dress the root caus­es of crime, strength­en law en­force­ment ca­pa­bil­i­ties, and re­store a sense of calm and se­cu­ri­ty.”

Bharath said if Row­ley is se­ri­ous about stem­ming the crime wave, the fol­low­ing must be ad­dressed im­me­di­ate­ly: (a) Cre­ation of a team that co­or­di­nates all in­tel­li­gence ser­vices, (b) Over­haul­ing the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem, (c) In­ves­ti­ga­tion/over­haul of the flawed Wit­ness Pro­tec­tion Pro­gramme, (d) Spe­cialised TTPS units deal­ing with gangs, hu­man traf­fick­ing, cy­ber­crime and drug/arms smug­gling, (e) Rein­tro­duc­tion of com­mu­ni­ty polic­ing, (f) Re­plac­ing the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter and CoP, who’ve both failed.

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath, how­ev­er, does not feel much will change.

“What I’d ex­pect the Prime Min­is­ter to say is not what I’d hope to hear from him—we need a Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty who can lead from in front rather than just ‘hope for the best’.

“Al­so, af­ter what we heard at the Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee’s in­ter­view with the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er last week, we’d ex­pect him to call on the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion to try to iden­ti­fy a new Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice so that when the in­cum­bent CoP’s cur­rent terms ends in May we don’t have a forced re­new­al.”

HOPE deputy leader (gov­er­nance) Louis Lee Sing, added, “HOPE, like every cit­i­zen and or­gan­i­sa­tion with­in the Re­pub­lic, wish­es to learn from the chair­man of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil pre­cise­ly how he pro­pos­es to bring se­cu­ri­ty to the na­tion! The Gov­ern­ment is on record as plac­ing this fun­da­men­tal re­spon­si­bil­i­ty on the lap of the po­lice, but we’re yet to learn whether the po­lice were at all part of the many closed-door meet­ings re­cent­ly held in the USA!

“We don’t want to hear of the prob­lems—we al­ready un­der­stand the prob­lems! All we ask of the PM is to come with the so­lu­tions! Enough talk! In all of nine years, you’ve talked! If you can­not act and with such ac­tions pro­duce tan­gi­ble re­sults, you must pass the man­tle of lead­er­ship to some­one more wor­thy of the re­spon­si­bil­i­ties!”

UNC chair­man Dave Tan­coo said, “The Op­po­si­tion hopes the Prime Min­is­ter will fire the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter—and ask that the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion be re­con­sti­tut­ed. Any­thing less is a fail­ure.”