Op­po­si­tion Leader, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar SC MP, is call­ing for more ac­count­abil­i­ty from Gov­ern­ment, over its spend­ing on mit­i­ga­tion mea­sures for the cur­rent COVID-19 cri­sis.

Her call comes fol­low­ing con­fir­ma­tion from the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter, that Gov­ern­ment has can­celled the res­i­den­tial pa­trols which were to be car­ried out by pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty firms.

The Op­po­si­tion Leader ar­gues that it was pub­lic out­cry and back­lash which re­al­ly was re­spon­si­ble for the de­ci­sion be­ing re­scind­ed.

In a re­lease is­sued to­day, Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar states cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly that “is­sues of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty should nev­er be so ad hoc that you could re­scind a de­ci­sion overnight”, and that it is crit­i­cal the nor­mal de­mo­c­ra­t­ic checks and bal­ances be re­spect­ed and up­held.

The Op­po­si­tion Leader’s state­ment on the is­sue, fol­lows…

KAM­LA: NOW MORE THAN EVER, THE GOV­ERN­MENT MUST AC­COUNT TO THE PEO­PLE OF TRINIDAD AND TO­BA­GO OVER ALL SPEND­ING ON MEA­SURES AIMED AT MIT­I­GAT­ING COVID-19

The Gov­ern­ment’s flip flop on the move to hire pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty firms to com­ple­ment po­lice pa­trols dur­ing the na­tion­al shut­down caused by the Coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic high­lights the need for greater trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty in all Gov­ern­ment’s spend­ing on mea­sures aimed at mit­i­gat­ing Covid-19.

In less than 24 hours of the de­ci­sion be­ing made pub­lic, the Gov­ern­ment was forced to re­scind it, fol­low­ing wide­spread crit­i­cism and con­cerns over:

•    the lack of trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty over the use of tax­pay­ers’ monies from the Her­itage and Sta­bi­liza­tion Fund

•    the role of the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force and Po­lice— in par­tic­u­lar, the un­der-use of the for­mer— in pro­vid­ing se­cu­ri­ty for cit­i­zens at this time

•    the le­gal im­pli­ca­tions/ju­ris­dic­tion of the ini­tia­tive which could re­sult in abuse of pow­er against cit­i­zens

•    the ap­par­ent on­go­ing lack of com­mu­ni­ca­tion among key na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies, in light of the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er’s state­ment that the TTPS did not make such a re­quest of Gov­ern­ment

•     the use of HSF funds for such ini­tia­tives, in­stead of be­ing used to pro­vide in­creased fi­nan­cial and so­cial sup­port for cit­i­zens and small busi­ness dur­ing this time of un­ex­pect­ed mass un­em­ploy­ment and loss of in­come.

The ex­pla­na­tion giv­en by Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young that cit­i­zens feel safe and there is no need for ad­di­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty does not hold any weight and it is clear that no one be­lieves that this is the rea­son for the about-turn.

The Gov­ern­ment must be trans­par­ent and ac­count­able to the cit­i­zens, es­pe­cial­ly when it comes to na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty de­ci­sions and state spend­ing. Is­sues of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty should nev­er be so ad hoc that you could re­scind a de­ci­sion overnight.

Usu­al­ly, the Par­lia­ment is where cit­i­zens, through their MPs seek to hold the Gov­ern­ment ac­count­able, clar­i­fy and ex­plain all of its de­ci­sions re­gard­ing pub­lic poli­cies and spend­ing.

A pan­dem­ic does not erode the need for these checks and bal­ances in our democ­ra­cy. 

I there­fore rec­om­mend that the Cab­i­net:

•    adopts a pol­i­cy of clear­ly in­form­ing cit­i­zens at its dai­ly news con­fer­ence on ALL its de­ci­sions re­lat­ing to the spend­ing of the $10 bil­lion dol­lars ac­cessed from the HSF fund and the $10 bil­lion in bor­row­ings un­der the De­vel­op­ment Loans Act,

•    as far as pos­si­ble, use the var­i­ous tech­no­log­i­cal plat­forms to con­sult with all rel­e­vant stake­hold­ers in a time­ly man­ner with re­gard to any pro­posed emer­gency mea­sures it in­tends to take, to get nec­es­sary feed­back and con­sen­sus,

•    uti­lizes the monies ac­cessed from the HSF to fo­cus on pro­vid­ing much need­ed so­cial, med­ical and fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance to the very large seg­ment of the pop­u­la­tion which now faces un­em­ploy­ment and loss of in­come as a re­sult of the cur­rent cri­sis,

•    un­der­takes to, as best as pos­si­ble, re­move the bu­reau­cra­cy in the re­lief grant process, which is cur­rent­ly pre­vent­ing many cit­i­zens from ac­cess­ing the pro­gramme.

The cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go must be com­mend­ed for their vig­i­lance in up­hold­ing our democ­ra­cy at this cru­cial time in our na­tion’s life.

I al­so urge all to con­tin­ue to sup­port the po­lice, army and the many es­sen­tial pub­lic ser­vants who are coura­geous­ly and self­less­ly risk­ing their own lives and safe­ty to en­sure that our coun­try re­mains func­tion­ing at this time.

In ad­di­tion, I con­tin­ue to ask that all cit­i­zens fol­low all pre­cau­tions in pro­tect­ing them­selves and their fam­i­lies dur­ing this time. Fol­low all san­i­ti­za­tion pro­ce­dures as well as all so­cial iso­la­tion rules set out by all of the var­i­ous in­ter­na­tion­al health or­gan­i­sa­tions.