No retreat, No surrender

NATIONAL SECURITY Minister Martin Joseph yesterday declared that Government would not  mimic UNC leader Basdeo Panday and throw its hands “up in the air” just because the Police Reform Bills were defeated in Parliament last week. He said alternate anti-crime strategies are being effected. During his tenure as Prime Minister, Panday threw his hands in the air during a post-Cabinet news conference at White-hall and said his government could not handle crime.

Speaking for the first time since the Bills’ were defeated after a marathon 72-hour debate in the House of Represen-tatives, Joseph admitted that the defeat made the task of fighting crime in Trinidad and Tobago “a little more challenging”, but he said Government was undaunted and will “dig deeper” within the resources at its disposal to tackle the criminal elements. Asked to elaborate on the alternative strategies which the Prime Minister referred to on Friday or how long they were in the works, Joseph declined comment on the grounds of national security. “You have to use what you have until you get what you want. We will leave no stone unturned,” he said.

Joseph said the Bills’ defeat did not increase the burdens he already shoulders as National Security Minister because he was prepared to face the challenges of the portfolio. The Minister said newspaper reports  alleging that Government was employing UNC anti-crime tactics just to prove the Opposition wrong were inaccurate because the gravity of the situation went beyond partisan politics and Govern-ment would never seek to trivialise crime. Leader of Govern-ment Business in the Lower House, Trade Minister Ken Valley, also declined to say what Government’s “Plan B” was. “You can’t tell the whole world what your plans are,” he said. However Valley said while Govern-ment has not decided whether it will bring the Bills back to Parliament in six months’ time, the silver lining in last week’s debate was that it sensitised the nation on the issue of crime and this was one important victory which the Govern-ment was able to achieve even though the Bills did not pass.

In particular, Valley said, the Police Service Commission (PSC) and the Police Service itself should be more enlightened where management issues are concerned and he is optimistic that both bodies will redouble their efforts within the existing framework to ensure management within the Service is improved on all levels. Valley said that Panday’s argument about constitutional reform being the solution for crime did not hold water. Two weeks ago, Manning said Government and Opposition had agreed on a process whereby constitutional reform in TT could take place. Science, Technolo-gy and Tertiary Education Minister Colm Imbert lamented that the Opposition failed to come up with any constructive proposals during the debate to address their concerns about insufficient safeguards in the legislation. Imbert said he expected there would be “aggressive action coming out of the Ministry of National Security to deal with the known problems.”