Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Both the for­mer head of the Na­tion­al Op­er­a­tions Cen­tre (NOC), Dr Garvin Heer­ah and for­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Gary Grif­fith agree with Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der that the NOC is be­ing un­der­utilised.

Dur­ing the post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing on Thurs­day, Alexan­der said the NOC is un­der­utilised and needs to be re­vi­talised.

“We need to in­cor­po­rate it ful­ly in­to the sys­tem,” Alexan­der said. “There must be col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween the joint com­mand, the com­mand cen­tre, the po­lice com­mand cen­tre, and all com­mand cen­tres in the po­lice di­vi­sions.”

Yes­ter­day, Grif­fith said the NOC was formed when he was part of the then Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment be­tween 2010 and 2015 as both na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ad­vi­sor and then min­is­ter. He said the pur­pose of the NOC was to stream­line all in­for­ma­tion on dis­as­ters, be it man-made or nat­ur­al.

The NOC at the time was un­der the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter and sub­se­quent­ly re­moved and placed un­der the purview of the Strate­gic Se­cu­ri­ty Agency. The ef­fec­tive­ness of the NOC was lost when that hap­pened, he said, as it was in­stru­men­tal in one of the low­est crime re­duc­tion rates in the his­to­ry of the coun­try.

“The NOC was de­signed in a way sim­i­lar to the Unit­ed King­dom, which is known as the Cab­i­net Op­er­a­tions Brief­ing Room (CO­BR). It is to en­sure that it is an amal­ga­ma­tion of all arms of in­tel­li­gence agen­cies, bring­ing all the in­for­ma­tion to­geth­er to have in­tel­li­gence-dri­ven polic­ing.”

Guardian Me­dia sent ques­tions to for­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ters un­der the PNM-led ad­min­is­tra­tion dur­ing the ear­ly part of their tenure, Stu­art Young and Ed­mund Dil­lon. Up to press time, nei­ther of them re­spond­ed.

Heer­ah, in a writ­ten state­ment, called for the NOC to be re­vamped.

“It was the nerve cen­tre of a na­tion­al ap­proach to se­cu­ri­ty, dis­as­ter re­sponse, in­ter-agency col­lab­o­ra­tion, and cri­sis man­age­ment. To­day, as we grap­ple with in­creas­ing threats both nat­ur­al and man-made, the time has come to rein­tro­duce the NOC not as an op­tion, but as a ne­ces­si­ty for pre­serv­ing or­der, safe­guard­ing lives, and ad­vanc­ing na­tion­al re­silience.”

Heer­ah added that the ef­fec­tive­ness of the NOC was its op­er­a­tions cen­tre, which served as an en­gine room that ran non-stop, pro­vid­ing re­al-time sit­u­a­tion­al aware­ness.

“This tech­no­log­i­cal and strate­gic in­te­gra­tion proved par­tic­u­lar­ly suc­cess­ful in the fight against high-pro­file crimes. The aer­i­al sur­veil­lance ca­pa­bil­i­ty pro­vid­ed by the NOC Air Unit was rev­o­lu­tion­ary. It en­abled law en­force­ment units on the ground to vi­su­alise op­er­a­tional en­vi­ron­ments be­fore de­ploy­ment. Re­al-time air-to-ground links sup­port­ed pur­suits, man­hunts, and on-scene in­ter­ven­tions. Car­jack­ings, armed rob­beries, and kid­nap­pings, once fre­quent head­line news, were ag­gres­sive­ly dis­rupt­ed and brought to his­toric lows.”