Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s sur­prise an­nounce­ment on Thurs­day of a new ad­di­tion to his Cab­i­net throws the spot­light on an MP who has spent most of his par­lia­men­tary term on the Gov­ern­ment back bench­es.

How­ev­er, Kei­th Scot­land, the MP for Port-of-Spain South, who has just been el­e­vat­ed to the po­si­tion of Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, has not been com­plete­ly out of the po­lit­i­cal lime­light for the past four years. For one thing, he rep­re­sents a con­stituen­cy rich in PNM his­to­ry as a long-held strong­hold that was once rep­re­sent­ed by the par­ty’s founder, Dr Er­ic Williams, and which in­cludes some key dis­tricts in the na­tion’s cap­i­tal. 

In Par­lia­ment, he has been serv­ing as chair­man of the Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee on Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, and at the par­ty lev­el, he chairs the ten-mem­ber work­ing com­mit­tee that is de­vel­op­ing the PNM’s po­si­tion on con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form. His pro­fes­sion­al back­ground in the le­gal pro­fes­sion for more than 25 years, in­clud­ing more than a decade as head of Vir­tus Cham­bers, in­cludes ex­per­tise in crim­i­nal, cor­po­rate, civ­il, in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions, and fam­i­ly law, as well as ex­pe­ri­ence prac­tis­ing in sev­er­al Caribbean ju­ris­dic­tions. 

To take up his new Cab­i­net ap­point­ment, Mr Scot­land has had to step aside from his le­gal prac­tice just weeks af­ter be­ing el­e­vat­ed to se­nior coun­sel. As a rel­a­tive po­lit­i­cal new­com­er now thrust in­to the front­line, Mr Scot­land will have to draw up­on all his le­gal ex­pe­ri­ence to man­age the weighty as­pects of the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty port­fo­lio that are now his re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

And as he steps in­to the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry, Mr Scot­land will share in the crit­i­cisms and scruti­ny that un­til now have been di­rect­ed most­ly at his Laven­tille East col­league, Fitzger­ald Hinds. He will al­so be un­der pres­sure to de­liv­er as the coun­try’s crime cri­sis reach­es un­prece­dent­ed lev­els of vi­o­lence in the min­istry that takes a con­sid­er­able chunk of the na­tion­al bud­get with lit­tle to show.

Mr Scot­land’s share of the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty port­fo­lio cov­ers the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS), man­age­ment of il­le­gal mi­gra­tion, and drug en­force­ment, all ar­eas with sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges.

Since 2016, T&T has faced a surge of il­le­gal en­tries in­to the coun­try, most­ly from Venezuela. Man­age­ment of this in­flux is com­pli­cat­ed by the fact that the Im­mi­gra­tion Act does not ad­e­quate­ly ad­dress the is­sue of refugees and asy­lum seek­ers. 

Leg­isla­tive gaps have al­so im­ped­ed ef­forts to curb drug traf­fick­ing, a decades-old prob­lem made worse by this coun­try’s ge­o­graph­ic lo­ca­tion and eas­i­ly ac­ces­si­ble bor­ders. Lax drug en­force­ment is one of the con­trib­u­tors to the cri­sis of height­ened crime and low­ered pub­lic con­fi­dence that Mr Scot­land will now be re­quired to take on full-time.

He doesn’t have much time to de­liv­er, as mea­sur­able re­sults will be ex­pect­ed by the time elec­tions are called next year. Crime has been ris­ing dra­mat­i­cal­ly since the late 1990s, and Mr Scot­land is the newest mem­ber of a Cab­i­net that is un­der in­creas­ing pres­sure to ex­pe­di­tious­ly im­ple­ment ef­fec­tive poli­cies to re­verse the sit­u­a­tion.

All eyes are al­ready on him to see if he can work suc­cess­ful­ly with Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher, the TTPS and the oth­er agen­cies that are now un­der his purview. Soon enough, the coun­try will see whether, pro­fes­sion­al qual­i­fi­ca­tions and ex­pe­ri­ence aside, Mr Scot­land has the will, de­ter­mi­na­tion and con­ti­nu­ity for this dif­fi­cult as­sign­ment.