KEVON FELMINE
Se­nior Re­porter
kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

While there may be some un­cer­tain­ty if law en­force­ment and le­gal of­fi­cers have to un­der­go poly­graph and drug test­ing in the fu­ture, Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young says the State will not use it for crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion.

Young re­spond­ed last Wednes­day to sev­er­al as­pects of Barataria/San Juan MP Sad­dam Ho­sein’s cri­tique of the leg­is­la­tion to al­low heads of de­part­ment (HoD) in sev­er­al State bod­ies, in­clud­ing the Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS), Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion (CED), Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion, Board of In­land Rev­enue (BIR), Ju­di­cial and Le­gal Ser­vices of­fi­cers, Prison Ser­vice (PSTT), De­fence Force (DFTT) and Fire Ser­vice, au­thor­i­ty to man­date test­ing and col­lec­tion of bio­met­ric da­ta of em­ploy­ees. 

Ho­sein ques­tioned the ev­i­den­tial val­ue of the da­ta col­lect­ed from the test if there is crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion. Young said the is­sue does not arise as all Gov­ern­ment seeks is to give the heads, like the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (CoP), the au­thor­i­ty to re­quest an of­fi­cer un­der­go poly­graph test­ing in spe­cial cir­cum­stances.

“There is nowhere in this leg­is­la­tion, nowhere in the sub­mis­sion of the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty who pi­lot­ed it, there is no sug­ges­tion what­so­ev­er that any of this is to be used for crim­i­nal charges or as ev­i­dence to­wards crim­i­nal charges. No. It is to be used in the prop­er ad­min­is­tra­tion, the prop­er run­ning of these var­i­ous de­part­ments,” Young said.

While Ho­sein said the bill does not pro­vide sanc­tions for those who do not sub­mit to test, Young said it does not need it. Young said the HoD would de­ter­mine the next steps fol­low­ing tests, not­ing the TTPS, PSTT and DFTT trans­fer of­fi­cers from their de­part­ments. 

Young ex­plained the tests were not for every  law en­force­ment and le­gal of­fi­cer but very care­ful­ly con­sid­ered po­si­tions ex­posed to na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and on­go­ing op­er­a­tional in­for­ma­tion. 

“This bill is to fa­cil­i­tate with one pil­lar, a fight against cor­rup­tion that un­for­tu­nate­ly has be­come a can­cer root­ed in our so­ci­ety. Madame Speak­er, what we are seek­ing to do to­day is mere­ly to pro­vide the le­gal au­thor­i­ty and abil­i­ty for heads of de­part­ment… to re­quest that of­fi­cers who have the abil­i­ty to see spe­cif­ic in­tel­li­gence re­ports and oth­er sen­si­tive in­for­ma­tion be sub­ject­ed, for ex­am­ple, to poly­graph test­ing.”

Re­spond­ing to Ho­sein’s rec­ol­lec­tion that for­mer CoP Gary Grif­fith sought to poly­graph South West­ern Di­vi­sion of­fi­cers, Young said he skimmed over the point that they re­fused. This leg­is­la­tion, he said, will com­pel of­fi­cers to un­der­go  poly­graph test­ing. 

He said when of­fi­cers refuse, the CoP could on­ly trans­fer them. Those who sub­mit­ted the test and passed con­tin­ued in their post.
In that in­stance, Young ex­plained that the South West penin­su­la be­came a gate­way for il­lic­it nar­cotics, firearms, and an­i­mal and hu­man traf­fick­ing. Grif­fith want­ed to en­sure the of­fi­cers were prop­er­ly vet­ted and not part of the prob­lem.

As a for­mer Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, Young said he of­ten got in­tel­li­gence re­ports that were not ev­i­den­tial but point­ed to cor­rupt ac­tiv­i­ties, which of­ten in­clud­ed po­lice, CED, im­mi­gra­tion and prison of­fi­cers.

“In that in­stance, you do not want of­fi­cers who are part of the crim­i­nal or­gan­i­sa­tion be­cause it hap­pens. The vast ma­jor­i­ty of these ser­vices are not cor­rupt, but all it takes is a cou­ple of cor­rupt per­sons in key and crit­i­cal po­si­tions to un­der­mine a whole op­er­a­tion.”

Young said that one would be­lieve the bill did not seek to amend par­ent leg­is­la­tion when lis­ten­ing to Ho­sein. Ho­sein ar­gued that the bill does not de­fine an of­fi­cer, but Young re­peat­ed that it was an amend­ment to the Prison Ser­vice Act, which al­ready has the de­f­i­n­i­tion.

He said the bill deals with le­gal of­fi­cers un­der the Ju­di­cial and Le­gal Ser­vices Act in spe­cif­ic po­si­tions and de­part­ments. Clause 3 de­fines the de­part­ment as CED, Im­mi­gra­tion, BIR and the Reg­is­trar Gen­er­al De­part­ment.

He said the pub­lic is aware of cas­es of land deals be­ing al­tered and fake birth and death cer­tifi­cates cre­at­ed in the Reg­is­trar Gen­er­al De­part­ment. He said this af­fects oth­er trans­ac­tions.

He said if of­fi­cers in BIR give some­one a Cer­tifi­cate of Com­pli­ance when they owe mil­lions, it is some­thing Gov­ern­ment wants to dis­cour­age. He said  the bill will not wipe cor­rup­tion from these de­part­ments, but will give HoDs the abil­i­ty to take ac­tion.

Young said the bill called on par­lia­men­tar­i­ans to de­cide whether they sup­port the leg­is­la­tion, but Ho­sein ram­bled points that gave no in­di­ca­tion.