Com­man­der Garvin Heer­ah

As our coun­try waits and pre­pares for the An­nu­al Bud­get Re­view on Oc­to­ber 7th 2020. It is ex­pect­ed there­fore as we are en­gaged in high lev­el plan­ning and re- struc­tur­ing hav­ing closed the last 5 years and em­bark­ing on­to an­oth­er 5 years, that the au­thors of this na­tion­al doc­u­ment fac­tor in­to the ti­tle or nar­ra­tive the key word of ac­count­abil­i­ty.

Many of us be­lieve that ac­count­abil­i­ty ad­dress­es mon­i­tor­ing and eval­u­a­tion. But it goes be­yond that. Ac­count­abil­i­ty is the pre-planned ac­tion of hold­ing se­nior de­ci­sion mak­ers, our lead­ers re­spon­si­ble for fail­ing to de­liv­er, re­spon­si­ble for mis­use of the pub­lic purse and re­spon­si­ble for the al­low­ing of cor­ro­sion and cor­rup­tion to ex­ist with­in their ge­o­graph­ic span of man­age­ment, with­out tak­ing the nec­es­sary ac­tion to stop it.

Ac­count­abil­i­ty is the as­pect of rep­re­sen­ta­tion that pro­motes trans­paren­cy and above board ap­proach to mang­ing the na­tion’s busi­ness.

Hav­ing said that, al­low me to turn the spot­light on Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty. The Busi­ness Con­ti­nu­ity Plan of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty is crit­i­cal to the op­er­at­ing ef­fi­cien­cy of the Min­istry and all its trib­u­taries go­ing for­ward.

It is hoped that our strate­gists and plan­ners would be en­gaged in preser­va­tion and re­con­struc­tion.

A ma­jor part of this ac­tion plan is the em­barka­tion, for­ma­tion and im­ple­men­ta­tion of a Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Pol­i­cy and the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Strat­e­gy. A Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Pol­i­cy (NSP) is a gov­ern­ment-wide analy­sis and de­scrip­tion of the strate­gic-lev­el con­cerns a coun­try faces; it ad­dress­es how the gov­ern­ment plans to deal with these con­cerns. A Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Strat­e­gy (NSS) is a gov­ern­ment’s over­ar­ch­ing plan for en­sur­ing the coun­try’s se­cu­ri­ty in the form of guid­ance for im­ple­ment­ing a coun­try’s na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty pol­i­cy. The team at Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty must by now have con­sid­ered the ef­fi­ca­cy of a NSS. It is con­sid­ered es­sen­tial for the in­te­gra­tion and co­or­di­na­tion of ac­tiv­i­ties by var­i­ous na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ac­tors. It de­fines the role of each na­tion­al ac­tor in deal­ing with na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty needs, de­ter­mines process­es (and chain of com­mand) for mak­ing de­ci­sions when re­sponse to threats or cri­sis is re­quired, and de­lin­eates con­di­tions for us­ing and ac­ti­vat­ing our se­cu­ri­ty forces. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, an NSS may de­tail co­op­er­a­tion mech­a­nisms be­tween var­i­ous se­cu­ri­ty ac­tors, re­gion­al mo­bil­i­sa­tion and stan­dard­i­s­a­tion of se­cu­ri­ty mech­a­nisms across the wide spec­trum of our op­er­a­tional the­atre.

Gen­er­al­ly, an NSS is based up­on threat as­sess­ments (pro­vid­ed by the var­i­ous in­tel­li­gence col­lec­tion and analy­sis ac­tors of the state, and in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners) and re­views of the ex­ist­ing state of the coun­try’s se­cu­ri­ty sec­tor. The NSS would fur­ther seek to de­ter­mine al­liances and work­ing re­la­tions with all for­eign coun­ter­parts.

Al­though our Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Strat­e­gy will fo­cus on main­ly the De­fence and Law En­force­ment as­pects, it would al­so have to drill in­to the var­i­ous arms of civ­il plat­forms of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry and lend sup­port and di­rec­tion to the de­liv­er­ables of these key arms of the state. It should be not­ed that the NSS and, na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty poli­cies are de­ter­mined by our Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil. It would be ex­pect­ed that a spe­cial team is set up and put in place to ad­dress this very salient is­sue. In the same for­mat and ‘rhythm’ as the Road Map to Re­cov­ery team.

(To­mor­row we look at some of the key rec­om­men­da­tions made by Com­man­der Heer­ah for con­sid­er­a­tion in the for­mu­laiton of a Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Strat­e­gy.)