RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Se­cu­ri­ty ex­perts say the cost to the tax­pay­er is sig­nif­i­cant­ly low­er when the Prime Min­is­ter works from a pri­vate res­i­dence rather than an of­fi­cial res­i­dence.

Their com­ments fol­lowed con­fir­ma­tion by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar yes­ter­day that she will con­tin­ue to work from the lo­ca­tion most con­ve­nient and nec­es­sary to com­plete the coun­try’s work.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, for­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Gary Grif­fith said the cost is "as­tro­nom­i­cal" when the of­fi­cial Prime Min­is­ter's res­i­dence is used.

"We have to de­ploy about 40 Spe­cial Branch of­fi­cers, Guard and Emer­gency Branch of­fi­cers, mem­bers of the De­fence Force, cooks, dri­vers, main­te­nance work­ers, san­i­ta­tion work­ers—all of these peo­ple have to be fed, they have to be seen about. There’s al­so a lo­gis­tics sit­u­a­tion that is cost­ly. They have to main­tain the prop­er­ty, so us­ing a pri­vate res­i­dence is sig­nif­i­cant­ly low­er,” Grif­fith said.

He not­ed that this is 20 times more than pay­ing a hous­ing al­lowance to the Prime Min­is­ter.

How­ev­er, Per­sad-Bisses­sar yes­ter­day said she does not get a hous­ing al­lowance when she us­es her pri­vate res­i­dence.

Grif­fith said while it is more ap­pro­pri­ate and fea­si­ble for a leader to re­side at the of­fi­cial res­i­dence, this may not al­ways be pos­si­ble.

“If the res­i­dence is not suit­able be­cause it’s un­der re­pairs or it needs ma­jor re­fur­bish­ment, well then the per­son will be left with no choice than to re­main at their home, which is what hap­pened with the Pres­i­dent pre­vi­ous­ly and it is present­ly the case with the Prime Min­is­ter.”

Grif­fith said for­mer Pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes chose to live at home with her moth­er and re­ceived a hous­ing al­lowance rather than move in­to Pres­i­dent’s House.

He said for­mer prime min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day al­ways stayed at the of­fi­cial res­i­dence.

“Back then I was in charge and the Prime Min­is­ter's res­i­dence was ful­ly op­er­a­tional, be­cause I was a very good mil­i­tary at­taché, so I had every­thing work­ing and every­thing was ful­ly func­tion­al. So there was no need for him to have to make that choice.”

Grif­fith said the use of a pri­vate res­i­dence re­duces the need for full se­cu­ri­ty de­ploy­ment.

“Be­cause it is her pri­vate prop­er­ty, she looks af­ter the main­te­nance of her own home. Her elec­tric­i­ty bill, the plumb­ing, the gar­den­ing, every­thing."

Re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty ex­pert Garvin Heer­ah al­so con­firmed the low­er cost to tax­pay­ers, but not­ed, “The is­sue is not cost, the is­sue is the im­age and the au­thor­i­ty of the of­fice and more so the height­ened risk and threat en­vi­ron­ment sur­round­ing the head of gov­ern­ment.”

Heer­ah said op­er­a­tional costs at the of­fi­cial res­i­dence are typ­i­cal­ly high­er, though pri­vate res­i­dence costs vary case by case based on crit­i­cal needs.

He said se­cu­ri­ty is al­ways el­e­vat­ed for the PM.

“Main­tain­ing what is known as the se­cu­ri­ty bub­ble wher­ev­er the Prime Min­is­ter is con­tin­ues and should be the pri­or­i­ty. Once the Prime Min­is­ter moves, the bub­ble must be there so as to en­sure her 360-de­gree se­cu­ri­ty at all times," he re­vealed.

Heer­ah said he was un­sure whether a pol­i­cy or prece­dent ex­ists for na­tion­al lead­ers work­ing from home.

“There were oc­ca­sions where they would work from the pri­vate res­i­dence," he said.

He said chal­lenges in­clude se­cur­ing the lo­ca­tion, es­tab­lish­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion in­fra­struc­ture, con­ti­nu­ity of op­er­a­tions, and safe­guard­ing sen­si­tive in­for­ma­tion, in­clud­ing cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty.

For­mer pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes al­so worked from her pri­vate home, opt­ing to take a hous­ing al­lowance and work from home to be with her el­der­ly moth­er. So too did for­mer pres­i­dents An­tho­ny Car­mona and George Maxwell-Richards. For­mer prime min­is­ters Bas­deo Pan­day, Patrick Man­ning and Dr Kei­th Row­ley all used the of­fi­cial res­i­dence while in of­fice.