Richard Lord

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said yes­ter­day that her Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment was com­mit­ted to en­hance pub­lic safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty in Trinidad and To­ba­go.She made the state­ment at the open­ing of a two-day in­ter­na­tion­al con­fer­ence at the Hy­att Re­gency Ho­tel, Wright­son Road, Port-of-Spain.

Del­e­gates at the Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Amer­i­can States (OAS) Third Meet­ing of Min­is­ters re­spon­si­ble for Pub­lic Se­cu­ri­ty in the Amer­i­c­as were told of the move by the T&T Gov­ern­ment to es­tab­lish a Pri­vate Se­cu­ri­ty Net­work Com­mis­sion (PSNC).Per­sad-Bisses­sar said pub­lic-pri­vate di­a­logue was "cru­cial in the ex­change of ideas and the ad­vance­ment of ef­fec­tive polic­ing."

She added: "The PSNC al­lows for the cre­ation of a fo­rum for in­ter-agency col­lab­o­ra­tion." Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the end re­sult was ex­pect­ed to be "the cre­ation of a func­tion­al part­ner­ship be­tween the Po­lice Ser­vice and mem­bers of the pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty in­dus­try."She said the PSNC "recog­nis­es that at present, var­i­ous par­ties con­cerned do not al­ways com­mu­ni­cate, or do not com­mu­ni­cate suf­fi­cient­ly."

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said with 20,000 "ad­di­tion­al pair of eyes of 'eyes and ears' from the pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty, the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice will be in a po­si­tion to trans­mit rel­e­vant in­for­ma­tion for ap­pro­pri­ate law en­force­ment ac­tion."Min­utes lat­er at an­oth­er re­lat­ed event Per­sad-Bisses­sar said a spe­cial mark was to be placed on firearms seized by the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice to help com­bat il­lic­it traf­fick­ing.

She was speak­ing at a spe­cial pre­sen­ta­tion cer­e­mo­ny, af­ter yes­ter­day's open­ing of the Third Meet­ing of Min­is­ters Re­spon­si­ble for Pub­lic Safe­ty in the Amer­i­c­as at the Hy­att Re­gency.Present at the cer­e­mo­ny were sec­re­tary gen­er­al of the Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Amer­i­can States Jose Miguel In­sulza, Grena­da's Prime Min­is­ter and Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Till­man Thomas and US At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Er­ic Hold­er.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the Pro­mot­ing Firearms in Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean agree­ment fa­cil­i­tat­ed the mark­ing of firearms with a dot-peen pin mark­ing ma­chine.She said the agree­ment, which was en­tered in­to in Ju­ly this year, al­so pro­vid­ed for im­proved ex­change of in­for­ma­tion and ex­pe­ri­ences among OAS mem­ber states.

She said those mea­sures were "es­sen­tial tools in com­bat­ing il­lic­it firearms traf­fick­ing."Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the "laser ma­chine will in­crease the ef­fi­cien­cy in which the po­lice ar­moury cur­rent­ly con­ducts its rou­tine mark­ing." She said 300 a month are to be marked for the first 12 months.She thanked both the OAS and the US for the ma­chine.

US AG Hold­er, in a brief ad­dress at the short pre­sen­ta­tion cer­e­mo­ny, said prop­er mark­ing and ef­fi­cient record-keep­ing were two "key fac­tors of any ef­fec­tive plan in­ves­ti­gate and in­ter­dict the il­lic­it traf­fick­ing of small arms."He said the US was pleased to have fund­ed the project.