This is the con­clu­sion of Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley's re­sponse to the 2011/2012 Bud­get:

The Trinidad and To­ba­go ex­pe­ri­ence should tell our Gov­ern­ment that the $200m plus an­nu­al sub­sidy that is re­quired to main­tain the Trinidad and To­ba­go fast fer­ry link for the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go which we must all bear is an in­te­gral part of our own na­tion. Any at­tempt to repli­cate that ser­vice over 1000 miles with fi­nan­cial ex­po­sure for the Trea­sury of Trinidad and To­ba­go is not on as far as the PNM is con­cerned. It is in this con­text that the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance must do more than tell us that this idea of a re­gion­al fast fer­ry which the Prime Min­is­ter an­nounced as a throw-away, done deal with $10 fares "will be a pri­vate sec­tor ini­tia­tive and the Gov­ern­ment will en­cour­age pro­pos­als to make this hap­pen." Just what ex­act­ly does that mean?

Mr Speak­er, giv­en the Prime Min­is­ter's grand stand­ing on this par­tic­u­lar mat­ter at a Heads of Gov­ern­ment meet­ing in St Kitts, the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance must come bet­ter than that. He must now be in a po­si­tion to spell it out or hold his peace. Is the Gov­ern­ment propos­ing to be a spon­sor or in­vestor in this ven­ture, if so by how much? Is the Gov­ern­ment go­ing to be a guar­an­tor then, to whom, and for how much? Are there any fea­si­bil­i­ty stud­ies on a fast fer­ry to show this work­able $10 fare? Will there be a sub­sidy com­po­nent? If so how much is Trinidad and To­ba­go in for? All these are ques­tions which must be an­swered be­fore we set sail on any re­gion­al fast fer­ry spawned on prime min­is­te­r­i­al vaps of cor­rec­tive gen­eros­i­ty to per­sons who may be ill pre­pared or who are propos­ing to be smarter than us.

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty

Mr Speak­er, it is trite that the State has a du­ty to ac­cord safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty to the cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go and vis­i­tors to our is­lands. It is equal­ly trite that the phe­nom­e­non of crime, has pre­sent­ed one of the ma­jor chal­lenges that con­front this so­ci­ety. In a con­sti­tu­tion­al democ­ra­cy, it is ex­pect­ed that the State, in so do­ing, must do so as cit­i­zens go about their law­ful, rou­tine, every­day af­fairs, whether this in­volves the jour­ney to and from school, ac­tiv­i­ties at the work­place and in the pur­suit of the wor­ship ac­cord­ing to one's re­li­gion. It has nev­er been our un­der­stand­ing or ex­pec­ta­tion, that we all have to be 'couped-up' in our homes, un­able to at­tend to our busi­ness­es, re­strict­ed in our so­cial and recre­ation­al ac­tiv­i­ties or be called up­on to give up our con­sti­tu­tion­al rights in or­der to en­joy such pro­tec­tion. The State does not have to put the en­tire so­ci­ety on pause in or­der to pro­tect us!

Mr Speak­er, it has nev­er been our un­der­stand­ing that cit­i­zens of this coun­try, whether law-abid­ing, law-break­er or out­right crim­i­nal, should be 'picked-up' with­out ev­i­dence and in so do­ing, be de­nied of the usu­al pro­tec­tions of the law and our con­sti­tu­tion. Par­lia­ment, in pass­ing the An­ti-Gang leg­is­la­tion did so in the full ex­pec­ta­tion that all laws en­act­ed in this coun­try re­quire the pro­cure­ment of ev­i­dence be­fore any pro­vi­sion can be in­voked against any cit­i­zen, for any of­fence, no mat­ter how triv­ial or how se­ri­ous the breach. Mr Speak­er, the cur­rent state of emer­gency has in­deed brought some ben­e­fits, al­beit for the most part, per­ceived and tem­po­rary, in the view of the more care­ful ob­serv­er. For one thing, it has ex­posed the fact that the State se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus, par­tic­u­lar­ly the Po­lice Ser­vice, had tremen­dous ex­cess ca­pac­i­ty and did not pre­vi­ous­ly ex­ert suf­fi­cient im­pact on the law­less­ness in our so­ci­ety.

An­oth­er ben­e­fit is the over­all re­duc­tion in se­ri­ous crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty dur­ing the pe­ri­od of the emer­gency. How­ev­er, it would be fool­ish and short-sight­ed to think that this de­vel­op­ment would be sus­tained if we do not put sus­tain­able and mean­ing­ful mea­sures in place in or­der to con­vert this tem­po­rary ben­e­fit to a more long term trend. Mr Speak­er, the Gov­ern­ment has con­tin­ued along the well-es­tab­lished prac­tice of the al­lo­ca­tion of one of the largest chunks of the bud­get to Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty. Yet, apart from the new nomen­cla­ture "21st Cen­tu­ry Polic­ing", we can dis­cern noth­ing that is new or that which was not pre­vi­ous­ly im­ple­ment­ed, in re­sponse to crime.

Whether it has to do with ef­forts to make the po­lice ser­vice and law-en­force­ment gen­er­al­ly more ef­fec­tive, by way of train­ing and the pro­vi­sion of re­quest­ed re­sources; whether it is by way of im­prove­ments in the Crim­i­nal Jus­tice sys­tem; or whether it has to do with the more wide­spread ap­pli­ca­tion of tech­nol­o­gy; or the ad­vance­ment of the pro­gramme for the re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion of of­fend­ers; or by way of so­cial in­ter­ven­tions to di­rect and keep our youth away from a life of crime. Hap­pi­ly for us of the Op­po­si­tion, we have seen vir­tu­al­ly more of the same. Mr Speak­er, as an Op­po­si­tion, we saw it as pru­dent, sen­si­ble and in the pub­lic in­ter­est to pro­vide moral and where nec­es­sary, par­lia­men­tary and con­sti­tu­tion­al sup­port to the Gov­ern­ment, in its work to re­lieve the cit­i­zens of the fear and oth­er man­i­fes­ta­tions of crime.

It is still our view, how­ev­er, that there is noth­ing that was achieved dur­ing the state of emer­gency which was not nor­mal po­lice work and which could not have been done with­out the avalanche of neg­a­tive as­pects of the State of Emer­gency. We have spent over an ex­tra $100 mil­lion in the last six weeks on ex­tra polic­ing. The ques­tion is, was this the best way to po­lice the coun­try at that and oth­er cost? We sup­port­ed the Bail Amend­ment Bill 2011. We sup­port­ed the so-called Wire Tap­ping Bill. We sup­port­ed the bill to make Firearms Of­fences more se­vere; and we al­so sup­port­ed, Mr Speak­er, the now mis-ap­plied An­ti-Gang Act, which be­came law in Trinidad and To­ba­go on the Au­gust 15, 2011. In so do­ing we put at the dis­pos­al of the Gov­ern­ment, an ad­mit­ted­ly dra­con­ian weapon, the likes of which have nev­er been seen be­fore. This was in­tend­ed for the Gov­ern­ment's 'le­git­i­mate use in the fight against crime'.

Mr Speak­er, in the hands of a re­spon­si­ble Gov­ern­ment, this leg­is­la­tion along with the wire-tap­ping leg­is­la­tion, this was as much as it need­ed to take on the crim­i­nals, with the full sup­port of the Par­lia­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go-that is to say, Gov­ern­ment Op­po­si­tion! and In­de­pen­dent! As well as the army of law-abid­ing cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go. Un­for­tu­nate­ly Mr Speak­er, in their over-ex­u­ber­ance and pur­suit of their short-sight­ed po­lit­i­cal agen­da the Gov­ern­ment botched it and land­ed us in a pick­le where in some cas­es, in­no­cent per­sons may have been ar­rest­ed; crim­i­nals may have been set free; con­fi­dence would have been lost in the po­lice ser­vice; con­fi­dence would have been lost by the po­lice ser­vice in it­self, as well as bring­ing our crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem in­to grave dis­re­pute.

Mr Speak­er, when we lent our sup­port in these mat­ters, we did so be­cause we ful­ly un­der­stand the role that a re­spon­si­ble PNM Op­po­si­tion must play in bring­ing about Peace, Safe­ty, Se­cu­ri­ty and the gen­er­al well-be­ing of our cit­i­zens, and in­deed vis­i­tors to our shores. But let me, Mr Speak­er, with equal rigour, make it abun­dant­ly clear, that we, as the Par­lia­men­tary Op­po­si­tion, will not sit idly by, do and say noth­ing, if and when this Gov­ern­ment seeks to abuse the rights of the cit­i­zens, or oth­er­wise act in an op­pres­sive and un­law­ful man­ner.

In this re­gard Mr Speak­er, we wish to place on the pub­lic record, our sin­cere ad­mi­ra­tion to our in­de­pen­dent Ju­di­cia­ry and the in­de­pen­dent of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions, as both of these in­sti­tu­tions stood res­olute­ly be­tween the cit­i­zen­ry of Trinidad and To­ba­go and this ram­pant Gov­ern­ment, sup­port­ed by a meek­ly co-op­er­a­tive Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, along with his deputies when, very re­cent­ly, the or­der of the day seemed to have be­come 'lock them up and we will get the ev­i­dence lat­er.' Mr Speak­er, this in­ter­ven­tion by these in­sti­tu­tions re­mind­ed us all, not least the Gov­ern­ment, that there is in­deed a fi­nal ar­biter in this con­sti­tu­tion­al democ­ra­cy. Mr Speak­er, in light of the re­cent ex­pe­ri­ence al­lud­ed to above, the Op­po­si­tion in­tends to pro­pose an amend­ment to the An­ti Gang Law to al­low for the in­ter­ven­tion of the of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions, be­fore any cit­i­zen is to be charged un­der this very de­lib­er­ate­ly dra­con­ian leg­is­la­tion.

Mr Speak­er, pub­lic trust and con­fi­dence in Law-en­force­ment are crit­i­cal in­gre­di­ents if the re­spec­tive agen­cies have to in­ter­face mean­ing­ful­ly with our cit­i­zens and to suc­ceed in the fight against crime. We in the Op­po­si­tion hold the dis­tinct fear that this trust and con­fi­dence in law-en­force­ment is one of the first ca­su­al­ties, in the re­cent fi­as­co. Mr Speak­er, in this coun­try's con­tin­ued re­sponse to law-break­ers and crim­i­nals, we would ex­pect to see the Gov­ern­ment en­gage in im­me­di­ate ac­tion to re­build and re­gain the pub­lic trust. We de­mand in­de­pen­dence and pro­fes­sion­al­ism from the of­fice of Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice. In this re­gard, pro­fes­sion­al polic­ing and pro­fes­sion­al de­ci­sion-mak­ing is what we ex­pect, and de­mand! We ex­pect and de­mand con­tin­ued in­vest­ment in the train­ing of law-en­force­ment per­son­nel, with a fo­cus on im­prov­ing de­tec­tion meth­ods and sta­tis­tics.

We ex­pect and de­mand fur­ther ad­vance­ment in the CC Tv cam­era pro­gramme and po­lice re­sponse teams. We ex­pect and de­mand a sus­tained gun-re­trieval ex­er­cise, not be­ing con­tent, as the Gov­ern­ment now seems to be, with the re­trieval of a rel­a­tive­ly few firearms over the past few weeks - some of which Mr Speak­er, bore fea­tures that are rem­i­nis­cent of Fran­cis Drake and Hen­ry Mor­gan and the pi­rate One-Fin­ger Jack. If this is achieved Mr Speak­er, nat­u­ral­ly there will be far less guns in the hands of reck­less young­sters who con­tribute sig­nif­i­cant­ly to the may­hem in our so­ci­ety. We ex­pect as well con­tin­ued in­vest­ment in the so­cial pro­grammes that have worked for the ben­e­fit of young peo­ple, rather than the sur­rep­ti­tious scal­ing-down threat­ened by the Gov­ern­ment. Fi­nal­ly, Mr Speak­er, we ex­pect and de­mand the ad­vance­ment of the re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion process that this Gov­ern­ment met in train, with­in the pris­ons of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Mr Speak­er, we will con­tin­ue to mon­i­tor the Gov­ern­ment as it car­ries out the crit­i­cal role of pro­vid­ing se­cu­ri­ty to peo­ple and prop­er­ty in this coun­try. As the Gov­ern­ment con­grat­u­lates it­self and the tar­get­ed pub­lic of­fi­cers ex­press their grat­i­tude for the $1000 al­lowance it is in­struc­tive for us to ex­am­ine how this in­equity came about in the first place. Pub­lic of­fi­cers of the var­i­ous se­cu­ri­ty ser­vices must re­mem­ber that it was this Gov­ern­ment, in the form of the Prime Min­is­ter her­self, which, in a meet­ing with the Po­lice Ser­vice Sec­ond Di­vi­sion, de­cid­ed to over­ride the col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing process and sub­sti­tute a pen­sion­able in­crease for an al­lowance which, as it is paid by the ex­che­quer in the same way as a salary in­crease, it makes no con­tri­bu­tion to the pen­sion earn­ings of the hard work­ing of­fi­cers who do not de­serve to be so tricked.