Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley is describing Trinidad and Tobago as a “violent and lawless society” and admitting that there is “no area in crime fighting” he is satisfied with as chairman of the National Security Council.
Speaking to host Hema Ramkissoon on CNC 3’s Morning Brew yesterday, Rowley also expressed his own concern about corruption in the Police Service, which he said affects the flow of information to solve crimes.
With the murder rate at close to 150 for the year, Rowley said crime is “an intractable problem. What is required is a sustained response with the expectation that there would be successes in those areas.” The litmus test, he said, is the success of security agencies, but he said “I am not satisfied with anything in the area of crime management, crime detection and suppression.”
He said the Government was trying to “build the capacity of the defence mechanisms of the police, the Coast Guard, the Defence Force, the SSA, so that they could appropriately respond to those persons who have chosen crime as a way of life, and to protect those who might become victims of crime.”
But the PM said the solution is not in dismissing the Minister of National Security.
“It is easy to say change the minister. The last government changed four or five Ministers of National Security, if changing the minister every Monday morning was the solution it would have been solved then.” Rowley also spoke of frustrations in the appointment of a Commissioner of Police.
“We have an officer acting as commissioner on eight successive occasions, it is a source of great frustration for me. I would like to have it rectified but we have no avenue.”
He said the decision is “stuck somewhere between the Director of Personnel Administration (DPA) and the Police Service Commission (PSC).” However, he said in an effort to address the crime problem the Government is “supporting the Commissioner in a variety of ways to ensure that he gets the best from the men and women working under him.” Rowley said they had established the Security Services Agency (SSA) “as a more well organised information gathering unit to help the police.” But he said having information does not mean that information “will be used in the best way.”
But the PM admitted that corruption in the police service was an issue. “It is fundamental to the creation of a police service that the population can trust, and that the officers can trust their colleagues, otherwise the police service will be operating without information. Unfortunately, in Trinidad and Tobago that is what we are working with.”
He noted that in past five years the state had spent $25 billion on crime fighting.
The PM also described the courts as “a place to park matters” and lamented that when the government goes to Parliament “to change the laws to handle things differently, people say leave it so because human rights of citizens affected. But when a criminal kills, the human rights of the person is also affected.”
On the issue of white collar crime, he said: “It is not a 100-yard sprint and it is also not a marathon. You can only follow the law and we are following the law to the letter, so that when the Government acts the action can be sustained.”
