Re­port­ing by

Am­bi­ka Ja­gas­sars­ingh

As the crime sit­u­a­tion wors­ens in T&T with brazen and vi­o­lent home in­va­sions, busi­ness­es be­ing tar­get­ed, and a mur­der toll on the cusp of 200, fear among the peo­ple is grow­ing. Strate­gic se­cu­ri­ty con­sul­tant Garvin Heer­ah, echo­ing the sen­ti­ments on the ground, said, “There is a fear that has tak­en over the land. There is a point of des­per­a­tion and con­cern. Many have voiced whether they want to con­tin­ue liv­ing in T&T or have their chil­dren grow up in this coun­try ... it is be­ing am­pli­fied from the bow­els of the cit­i­zen­ry.”

Over­whelmed as they grap­ple with crime dai­ly, cit­i­zens are look­ing to Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds, Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher and the Cab­i­net to en­sure the main­te­nance of law and or­der and pub­lic safe­ty so that they can feel se­cure and pro­tect­ed.

And Heer­ah agrees that they must play a crit­i­cal role in se­cur­ing the na­tion.

“A role that in­volves lis­ten­ing to the cries of the peo­ple, de­liv­er­ing on their man­date and hold­ing them­selves ac­count­able for en­sur­ing that the cit­i­zens feel safe and se­cure by the strate­gies, poli­cies, laws and ac­tions that are passed, im­ple­ment­ed and ac­tioned.”

The man on the street and so­cial me­dia users con­tin­u­ous­ly voice their con­cerns over what they see as the Gov­ern­ment’s fail­ure to curb run­away crime. And the per­son who has par­tic­u­lar­ly come un­der harsh crit­i­cism for this is the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter.

On Fri­day, the Op­po­si­tion UNC moved a mo­tion of no-con­fi­dence in Hinds’ per­for­mance as Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, call­ing for his re­moval. They have made sev­er­al calls in the past to Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley for him to be re­moved from of­fice.

Hinds al­so came un­der heavy fire ear­li­er this month from the pub­lic when he said that it was not his re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to de­vel­op a crime plan. Rather, he said, it is the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of CoP and the De­fence Force, which of­fer sup­port to the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice in its crime erad­i­ca­tion dri­ve. He had said, “A crime plan is not for me, it is for the po­lice, and I am aware of what the po­lice have planned and the strate­gies along with the De­fence Force which they are op­er­at­ing.” He re­it­er­at­ed that his job was to pro­vide law en­force­ment with the “pol­i­cy di­rec­tions” to re­duce crime.

On Wednes­day, Hinds re­ceived a Vi­o­lent Crime Re­duc­tion plan pre­pared by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS). The plan out­lined 15 ob­jec­tives that seek to dras­ti­cal­ly re­duce crime and en­hance po­lice in­tel­li­gence.

What ex­act­ly is the role of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter?

Many are ques­tion­ing: What ex­act­ly is the role of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter?

Heer­ah, who was a for­mer di­rec­tor of the Na­tion­al Op­er­a­tions Cen­tre (crit­i­cal co­or­di­nat­ing ax­is link­ing all of the arms of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and ex­e­cut­ing the man­date of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil led by the Prime Min­is­ter and the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty) and di­rec­tor gen­er­al of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Train­ing Acad­e­my, said the min­is­ter’s role was to set clear­ly de­fined di­rec­tives to his heads of se­cu­ri­ty. “In so do­ing, he must be firm in iden­ti­fy­ing time­lines, ob­jec­tives and hold peo­ple ac­count­able for de­liv­er­ing.”

Heer­ah said there were sev­er­al as­pects of the roles and func­tions of the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty nec­es­sary for suc­cess, in­clud­ing the cit­i­zens’ faith in the min­is­ter and his abil­i­ty to de­liv­er.

He agreed that the min­is­ter does not put a crime plan in place. “But he can ques­tion or re­quest with strict dead­lines what are the plans of the TTPS, Fire Ser­vices, TTDF, Pris­ons, and all arms of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty. If a crime plan is pro­duced it should be a prod­uct, a joint con­sul­ta­tion and col­lab­o­ra­tion of all the arms of Nat Sec, be­cause crime and na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty in­volves a holis­tic and co­or­di­nat­ed ap­proach.

“The min­is­ter has to en­sure that the arms of Nat Sec are meet­ing their tar­gets and de­liv­er­ables. If this isn’t be­ing done, there must be de­ci­sions and ac­tions in place to ad­dress these short­com­ings. It falls back to a com­mon quote and un­der­stand­ing ‘Un­der My Watch.’

“The trust and con­fi­dence of our cit­i­zens are very im­por­tant. But this is achieved over time based on per­for­mance and sat­is­fac­tion. A great deal is al­so mea­sur­able based on suc­cess and ef­fi­cien­cy fac­tors.

“The Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty must seek to com­mu­ni­cate clear­ly, the mea­sures of ef­fi­cien­cy and achiev­ables to en­sure that pub­lic trust and con­fi­dence are re­ceived. But he can’t do this on his own, again it comes back down to the vi­sion, the mis­sion, the ob­jec­tives and the con­tri­bu­tions of all arms of the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty.”

The se­cu­ri­ty ex­pert al­so stat­ed that while the roles of the CoP and that of the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty dif­fer, they work in tan­dem with each oth­er to make the coun­try bet­ter.

“The CoP is re­spon­si­ble for the TTPS, in to­tal­i­ty. The min­is­ter is re­spon­si­ble for en­sur­ing the TTPS is re­sourced, out­fit­ted and fund­ed with all the re­quire­ments, which in­cludes man­pow­er to do their job. He can’t tell them how to do their job, but he can ques­tion and eval­u­ate if the job is be­ing done to the peo­ple’s, his or the Gov­ern­ment’s sat­is­fac­tion. Both roles re­ly on each oth­er for a com­mon goal, a uni­fied ef­fort and a joint vi­sion. This should be the restora­tion of safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty for T&T.”

An up­dat­ed pub­lic state­ment of the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty 2021 stat­ed that ten agen­cies fall un­der the re­mit of the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty. These in­clude the Gen­er­al Ad­min­is­tra­tion Di­vi­sion, the De­fence Force, the Po­lice Ser­vice, the Fire Ser­vice, the Prison Ser­vice, the Cadet Force, the Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion, the Of­fice of Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness and Man­age­ment, the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre and the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency.

What Hinds says about his role

In Feb­ru­ary 2022, Hinds, re­spond­ing to crit­i­cisms from the pub­lic and the Op­po­si­tion, said, “For any Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, is­sues of safe­ty, se­cu­ri­ty and the well-be­ing of all our cit­i­zens and vis­i­tors to our shores, as well as is­sues of nat­ur­al dis­as­ter, must be para­mount.”

He re­it­er­at­ed that the role of the 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.”

Hinds said that 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 reaf­firmed that it was “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,” he added.

The min­is­ter said he con­sid­ered “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.” Hinds said then that he re­mained res­olute in the re­al­i­sa­tion of this ob­jec­tive.

For­mer min­is­ters weigh in

Gary Grif­fith

Mean­while, for­mer min­is­ter of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and com­mis­sion­er of po­lice Gary Grif­fith al­so weighed in on the func­tions of a na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter and said, “One of the main things in­volved is try­ing to draft prop­er poli­cies to as­sist in na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, and that is known as an­ti-crime plans. Draft­ing of poli­cies that are then im­ple­ment­ed by the pro­tec­tive ser­vices.”

Grif­fith re­called his own time in the of­fice, stat­ing that he was able to draft and im­ple­ment sev­er­al poli­cies dur­ing his tenure, as was ex­pect­ed of him.

He ex­plained that this ad­min­is­tra­tive func­tion that Hinds claimed as his own was part of the re­quire­ments for a per­ma­nent sec­re­tary (PS).

The PS is known as the most se­nior of­fi­cial in the pub­lic ser­vice. PSs are re­spon­si­ble for the im­ple­men­ta­tion of poli­cies, which was em­pha­sised by Grif­fith.

“The per­ma­nent sec­re­tary ad­heres to the ad­min­is­tra­tive as­pects of the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, which is why when the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty says that his role is just to en­sure pay­ments are made for the pro­tec­tive ser­vices, he’s ac­tu­al­ly go­ing in­to the realm and the role and func­tion of the per­ma­nent sec­re­tary, so the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty feels that his job is that of a per­ma­nent sec­re­tary.

“I had to draft poli­cies to en­hance the op­er­a­tional ca­pa­bil­i­ty of the law en­force­ment agen­cies, which is why un­der my watch, as the min­is­ter, I was able to do the draft, the Na­tion­al Op­er­a­tions Cen­tre, the Rapid Re­sponse Unit, the train­ing acad­e­my, the en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty ini­tia­tive, the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty spe­cial op­er­a­tion group, which was sim­i­lar to SAUTT. So, there are a num­ber of dif­fer­ent ini­tia­tives and poli­cies and roles and func­tions of a Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty.”

Em­manuel George

Ac­cord­ing to an­oth­er for­mer min­is­ter of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, Em­manuel George, how­ev­er, the job de­scrip­tion for the po­si­tion comes di­rect­ly from the Prime Min­is­ter. “When you are named a min­is­ter, the Prime Min­is­ter gives to you what your port­fo­lio will con­sist of.”

Asked whether pub­lic con­fi­dence should play an im­por­tant role in this min­is­ter’s job, Hinds said, “The most im­por­tant per­son who has to have con­fi­dence in the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty is the Prime Min­is­ter be­cause he is the one who is sole­ly re­spon­si­ble for the ap­point­ment of the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty. And that is the on­ly per­son whose con­fi­dence is im­por­tant in the ap­point­ment.”

Re­tired Brigadier Carl Al­fon­so

An­oth­er for­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter, Re­tired Brigadier Carl Al­fon­so weighed in on whether cre­at­ing a crime plan fell un­der the min­is­ter’s purview.

He said, “The Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice or the Po­lice Ser­vice, in gen­er­al, will come up with some sort of a crime plan, they will go to Cab­i­net and cer­tain­ly will go to the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, of which the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty is a part, and is head­ed by the Prime Min­is­ter. So, it is not a min­is­ter per se who has to come up with his crime plan.”

Like George, he al­so said that “The pub­lic has noth­ing to do with who the Prime Min­is­ter ap­points. You may not like a per­son, but the Prime Min­is­ter de­cides who’s go­ing to be his min­is­ter.”