Charles: OJT Minister of National Security appointment proves Rowley has no plan to deal with crime

“Everybody better brakes for him/herself; Rowley does not know what he is doing about crime. He is a leader without a plan and operating by vaps.”

Member for Naparima, Mr. Rodney Charles,
Image Courtesy: Office of the Parliament.

Naparima MP is calling on PM Rowley to pray tell us on what rational basis he has appointed a relatively inexperienced OJT to provide strategic policy guidance, leadership and management expertise to the reported 20,000 public servants in the Ministry of National Security in the hope of reducing our out of control murder rate.

Minister Young who was yesterday, like a thief in the night, appointed Minister of National Security in addition to his being Minister of Communications and Minister in the Office of the Prime Minister has no known experience whatsoever in National Security and has even less in managing a multi-faceted bureaucracy.

Where will he find time to address the needs of three portfolios? Or are his Communications and National Security portfolios essentially one Ministry about old talk? We are left to wonder whether he has a “level head or even common sense”, basic qualifications for ministerial appointments.

The recent manpower audit into the Police Service gave us a glimpse of the abundance of human resource challenges, including a huge “Petrotrin-like” overtime wage bill that bedevils the TTPS – one of many very large institutions under the remit of this relatively young and junior Minister of National Security.

Could PM Rowley tell us of any successes Minister Young has delivered to date to give us any comfort that he has what it takes to address the plethora of very urgent challenges; affecting the war on crime; in the Prisons Service, in Immigration, in the TTCG, in the TTDF, in the various organizations like the MILAT, MYPART, the Civilian Conservation Corp, in the Cadets and in Customs?

Lloyd Best advised that once on the stage and the curtains have parted, the time for rehearsing is over. This Government is still in rehearsal mode, thinking up solutions as it goes along hoping that something will work or that it can fool the people for a further six months or so.

One day the process flawed. The next day the process is acceptable.

Yesterday it was emailgate that was conjured up by Rowley merely to mislead the citizenry, buy time, pretend that action is occurring. Today emailgate is exposed as a fraud.

Minister Young has failed as a performer. We are at a loss to identify even one major achievement that has led to the improvement in our quality of life. His only qualifications are that he is a talker in Parliament and a strong supporter of Anti-Gang legislation that has proved ineffective.

He is a smooth talker and for that he may be suited to the Minister of Communications to continually hoodwink the population into believing that our life is improving and serious crime is down. But our challenges in National Security are not amenable to old talk, friendship with the PM and youthful exuberance uninformed by practiced wisdom. It requires mature judgment, vast experience in management eventually leading to cold, clinical performance improvements.

“I recall the PNM speaking in parliament about so called ghost employees. Where are they? What are their names? After two and a half years what has been done about them? Was it trademark PNM old talk to buy time? Was it another version of emailgate conjured up to fool the country?” asks MP Charles.

“This Government is about talk. Rowley feels that he can deceive us over and over again with inconsequential actions that lead to no measurable improvement in our lives. We are smarter than that.”

While we live in fear of crime and the criminals, PM Rowley continues to think up strategies and actions to delude the people and assuage our concerns but make us no safer.

The Opposition will look not at the various unproductive PR measures adopted by this Government to deal with crime. We will continue to have a laser-like focus on their outputs – like reduced response times, improved detection rates, a highly motivated TTPS and significant reductions in murders.

We wish Minister Young well but we remain unimpressed by his appointment.

Rodney Charles
MP for Naparima