DR HAMID GHANY

The re­cent rev­e­la­tions in­volv­ing Sasha Mo­hammed, the en­gage­ments ad­vis­er to the Prime Min­is­ter, and ed­i­to­r­i­al and re­port­ing staff at the Ex­press news­pa­per have come in­to promi­nence with re­ports about warn­ings for Mo­hammed and the re­sponse of her at­tor­neys that there is no crim­i­nal of­fence to an­swer. In­deed, there are ques­tions about the ba­sis on which a warn­ing was is­sued to Mo­hammed.

While these mat­ters work them­selves out, there are fun­da­men­tal ques­tions that arise about the work habits and pro­file of the en­gage­ment ad­vis­er to the Prime Min­is­ter. First­ly, this ap­point­ment is one of di­rect pa­tron­age as are some of the oth­er con­trac­tu­al ap­point­ments at a high lev­el that are made di­rect­ly by any Prime Min­is­ter in her of­fice. Pre­vi­ous Prime Min­is­ters have made sim­i­lar ap­point­ments and this Prime Min­is­ter is no dif­fer­ent.The re­al­i­ty is that any­one who is ap­point­ed to a sen­si­tive po­si­tion in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter that re­quires them to in­ter­act di­rect­ly and on a dai­ly ba­sis with the Prime Min­is­ter must have the se­cu­ri­ty of the Prime Min­is­ter as their num­ber one pri­or­i­ty re­gard­less of what­ev­er else they may do in that of­fice. To that end, their cell phone(s), lap­top com­put­er, work com­put­er and home com­put­er must be kept se­cure at all times.

If any­one in that mag­ic cir­cle of per­son­al ad­vis­ers around the Prime Min­is­ter were to al­low some­one else to gain ac­cess to their home com­put­er, their work com­put­er, their lap­top com­put­er or their cell phone(s), they would have com­pro­mised the se­cu­ri­ty and safe­ty of the Prime Min­is­ter of this coun­try. Work­ing in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter is a 24/7 op­er­a­tion that knows no bound­ary be­tween of­fice hours and af­ter of­fice hours. You are ef­fec­tive­ly at work and on call all day and every day. If you open­ly ad­mit that any of your en­vi­ron­ments (home or work) can be com­pro­mised, then you are a thret to the Prime Min­is­ter.

If the Prime Min­is­ter is com­fort­able with per­mit­ting a clear and present dan­ger to her safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty to con­tin­ue to ex­ist in­side of her mag­ic cir­cle of per­son­al ad­vis­ers, then that is a rev­e­la­tion about how much em­pha­sis she places on her per­son­al and po­lit­i­cal safe­ty. At the time of writ­ing, the Prime Min­is­ter had still not bro­ken her si­lence on the is­sue. Every leak that her po­lit­i­cal en­e­mies want to en­gi­neer from in­side her of­fice can be charged to the weak­est link in the chain.It ap­pears that per­son­al and po­lit­i­cal safe­ty may be ig­nored if the home en­vi­ron­ment of Mo­hammed could per­mit the fig­ment of some­one's po­lit­i­cal-neo­phyte mind to cre­ate Jan­ice Thomas to ter­rorise an ed­i­tor and a re­porter at a ma­jor news­pa­per in this coun­try.

Jan­ice Thomas and her be­hav­iour could hard­ly be a cre­ation of the Prime Min­is­ter and is de­nied by Mo­hammed as her cre­ation. But Jan­ice Thomas was cre­at­ed in­side the house­hold of Mo­hammed us­ing her home com­put­er and the IP ad­dress as­signed to her by FLOW Trinidad Ltd for her in­ter­net ac­count. It ap­pears that the crim­i­nal law in this coun­try is very un­der­de­vel­oped on the sub­ject of e-mail ha­rass­ment, but the Po­lice Ser­vice seem to be ahead of the curve based on the work of their Cy­ber Unit in this mat­ter.The ghost of Jan­ice Thomas was born in­side Mo­hammed's home and ex­pressed its threat to free­dom of the press from its warped imag­i­na­tion with a very dark side that re­vealed the be­hav­iour of an ap­pari­tion who would be pre­pared to go fur­ther in­to the dark side. Such a ghost must be stopped if the Prime Min­is­ter of this coun­try is to be kept safe.

The ghost of Jan­ice Thomas

So far the ghost of Jan­ice Thomas has put the Prime Min­is­ter on the de­fen­sive and an­oth­er one of her ad­vis­ers has is­sued a state­ment that at­tract­ed fur­ther po­lit­i­cal fire about her avail­abil­i­ty for in­ter­views. The source of the prob­lem is the ghost of Jan­ice Thomas. As long as the Prime Min­is­ter con­tin­ues to tol­er­ate the ex­is­tence of this ghost in­side the Mo­hammed house­hold, she and her ad­min­is­tra­tion will be put at great po­lit­i­cal risk. This ghost has the po­ten­tial to fol­low Mo­hammed wher­ev­er she goes and based on the pho­to pro­files that have been pub­lished in the print me­dia, it ap­pears that the im­age of a he­do­nis­tic lifestyle rep­re­sents an area of per­son­al life that can be ex­ploit­ed po­lit­i­cal­ly, eg covert ac­tivist agents seat­ed at restau­rant ta­bles near­by, etc.

Every Prime Min­is­ter has their own style of op­er­a­tion and the way in which they may tol­er­ate se­cu­ri­ty breach­es with­in their mag­ic cir­cle of ad­vis­ers tells you some­thing about them. There is al­ways a bal­ance be­tween loy­al­ty, pa­tron­age and abil­i­ty and in mak­ing ap­point­ments these fac­tors have to be con­sid­ered with abil­i­ty be­ing the most im­por­tant.Is­su­ing a state­ment that places doubt on whether Mo­hammed cre­at­ed and be­haved like Jan­ice Thomas or not on­ly serves to com­pro­mise the per­son­al and po­lit­i­cal safe­ty of the Prime Min­is­ter. If the Prime Min­is­ter is com­fort­able with that, then the po­lit­i­cal risk for her and for her en­tire Gov­ern­ment falls at her feet.