The Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, Fitzger­ald Hinds MP, has is­sued a state­ment in re­spond­ing to pub­lic com­men­tary on an in­ter­view he did on a lo­cal morn­ing show, on Mon­day 7 Feb­ru­ary 2022.

The full text of the Min­is­ter’s state­ment, fol­lows…

MIN­IS­TER HINDS: THE LIFE OF EVERY CIT­I­ZEN IS IM­POR­TANT

The Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, the Ho­n­ourable Fitzger­ald Hinds M.P. lis­tened care­ful­ly to crit­i­cisms and the furore raised by the Po­lit­i­cal Op­po­si­tion to com­ments that he made, dur­ing an in­ter­view with TV6 Host Fazeer Mo­hammed, on the Morn­ing Edi­tion Pro­gramme of Mon­day Feb­ru­ary 7, 2022. 

The Min­is­ter takes this op­por­tu­ni­ty to clear the air on this is­sue.

Mr. Mo­hammed, in his usu­al ag­gres­sive and abra­sive style, in­vit­ed the Min­is­ter to agree to his hy­poth­e­sis that the Min­is­ter had failed in his re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to en­sure the safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of the cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Nat­u­ral­ly, the Min­is­ter dis­agreed, since noth­ing could be fur­ther from the truth.

Min­is­ter Hinds did not agree with Mr. Mo­hammed’s ill-in­formed and con­trived po­si­tion, and there­fore sought to clar­i­fy for Mr. Mo­hammed, the role of the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, ex­tends be­yond mere “con­cern”, “anger” and “ex­as­per­a­tion”, over the is­sue of crime and vi­o­lence in this coun­try.

For any Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, is­sues of safe­ty, se­cu­ri­ty and the well­be­ing of all our cit­i­zens and vis­i­tors to our shores, as well as is­sues of nat­ur­al dis­as­ter, must be para­mount. 

This is why Min­is­ter Hinds al­so sought to clar­i­fy for Mr. Mo­hammed that the role of a Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty does not in­volve op­er­a­tional as­pects of law en­force­ment; that be­ing the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice, of course sup­port­ed by oth­er op­er­a­tional arms of the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty. 

Min­is­ter Hinds com­mu­ni­cat­ed that as a gov­ern­ment min­is­ter, in this rep­re­sen­ta­tive democ­ra­cy, among his pri­ma­ry re­spon­si­bil­i­ties, is the ar­tic­u­la­tion of Gov­ern­ment’s Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Pol­i­cy, and as well, to en­sure that law en­force­ment agen­cies are prop­er­ly re­sourced, and sup­port­ed, in the fight against crime and oth­er threats to this democ­ra­cy.

The Min­is­ter here reaf­firms that it is the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the tech­ni­cal ex­perts/of­fice hold­ers, like the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, the Chief of De­fence Staff, and oth­er lead­ers of the State’s se­cu­ri­ty ar­chi­tec­ture, as well as their per­son­nel to treat with strate­gic frame­works, that guide the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the gov­ern­ment’s pol­i­cy on na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty. These nat­u­ral­ly are aimed at achiev­ing op­ti­mum safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty for, and on be­half of, all of the cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

The Ho­n­ourable Min­is­ter con­sid­ers this col­lab­o­ra­tive and co­op­er­a­tive re­la­tion­ship, with the op­er­a­tional lead­ers of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, un­der­gird­ed by com­pe­tence, mu­tu­al re­spect, and in­tegri­ty in pub­lic of­fice, to be the mod­el that will of­fer the cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go, the most ef­fec­tive ap­proach to ar­rest­ing the state of crime and crim­i­nal­i­ty. 

The Min­is­ter re­mains res­olute in the re­al­iza­tion of this ob­jec­tive.

It is to be not­ed that those who choose to crit­i­cize the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, might very well be guilty of not sub­scrib­ing to, nor ad­her­ing to the prin­ci­ples out­lined by the Min­is­ter, and rather choose to use their po­lit­i­cal and oth­er in­flu­ence to un­der­mine the in­tegri­ty of these en­dur­ing prin­ci­ples, es­sen­tial to the goal of good gov­er­nance in Trinidad and To­ba­go.