“My de­ci­sion to leave is based sole­ly on my con­cerns for the fu­ture of my busi­ness in Trinidad. I have ob­served that many of my en­tre­pre­neurs and my­self are strug­gling in an en­vi­ron­ment that seems to lack op­por­tu­ni­ty for small play­ers. In con­trast, my busi­ness en­deav­ours out­side of Trinidad have yield­ed sig­nif­i­cant­ly bet­ter re­sults with less ef­fort, and I feel it is es­sen­tial to fo­cus my en­er­gy where I see the great­est po­ten­tial for suc­cess.”–Mem­ber, Amer­i­can Cham­ber of Com­merce.

What­ev­er opin­ions one may have of that per­son’s de­ci­sion re­gard­ing busi­ness sur­vival, the ev­i­dence of closed busi­ness­es is all around, al­though gen­er­al­ly, the pri­vate sec­tor con­tin­ues to do well. But it will be to the detri­ment of our coun­try if en­tre­pre­neurs, young med­ical pro­fes­sion­als, and oth­er ex­perts need­ed here con­tin­ue to mi­grate to dif­fer­ent shores.

Gov­ern­ments come and go; each has vowed to im­prove the ease of do­ing busi­ness and de­feat crime be­cause these af­fect cit­i­zens’ wel­fare and im­pede sus­tain­able busi­ness and eco­nom­ic growth. These goals are still to be achieved.

The prob­lems in the Po­lice Ser­vice will like­ly wors­en un­less there’s recog­ni­tion and ac­cep­tance by the gov­ern­ment and those as­pir­ing to gov­ern that the un­der­ly­ing prob­lem mil­i­tat­ing against the trans­for­ma­tion of the Po­lice Ser­vice is the qual­i­ty of man­age­ment and gov­er­nance.

We have reached the cru­cial point of in­flex­ion—where prospects for busi­ness and eco­nom­ic growth, so­cial co­he­sion and sta­bil­i­ty edge to­ward de­cline and dan­ger. De­tec­tion, pros­e­cu­tion, and con­vic­tion are the on­ly vi­able de­ter­rents to crim­i­nals. Oth­er­wise, they be­come em­bold­ened to threat­en and in­tim­i­date peo­ple in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem and act on those threats. The con­se­quences are dire.

Who is re­spon­si­ble for the high crime lev­els? Killings with guns com­ing through le­gal ports and Cus­toms is a 60-year-old prob­lem. Take the damn­ing sit­u­a­tion sur­round­ing the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA) where, al­leged­ly, re­li­gion in­fused the agency with un­god­ly prac­tices. The Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty (MoNS) failed in its over­sight re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and du­ty of care.

For ex­am­ple, it is un­ten­able that the 2008 An­nu­al Re­port was the last au­dit­ed re­port tabled in Par­lia­ment for the SSA. The law man­dates that re­ports be sent to the min­is­ter an­nu­al­ly. Au­dit­ed fi­nan­cial and op­er­a­tional re­ports are es­sen­tial pol­i­cy and gov­er­nance in­stru­ments, fa­cil­i­tat­ing trans­paren­cy and de­tect­ing per­for­mance is­sues that may se­ri­ous­ly af­fect in­sti­tu­tions and the coun­try.

What ac­tions should the Cab­i­net take against line min­is­ters, ac­count­ing of­fi­cers, and heads of agen­cies for such dere­lic­tion of du­ty? Aren’t min­is­ters ob­lig­at­ed to en­sure that the agen­cies un­der their di­rec­tion and con­trol im­ple­ment gov­ern­ment poli­cies and sys­tems of ac­count­abil­i­ty to mit­i­gate the risks of sit­u­a­tions con­trary to the pub­lic good? These will in­clude reg­u­lar, im­promp­tu op­er­a­tional and hu­man re­sources au­dits and risk man­age­ment ac­tiv­i­ties per­formed by pro­fes­sion­als in­de­pen­dent of the agen­cies.

Over the last 12 years, we have had six com­mis­sion­ers of po­lice (CoP). How does the Gov­ern­ment ex­pect the Po­lice Ser­vice to nur­ture a well-trained, high­ly mo­ti­vat­ed and eth­i­cal work­force and trans­form the in­sti­tu­tion to­ward sus­tained ef­fi­cien­cy and ex­cel­lence, giv­en that the of­fice of CoP is a re­volv­ing door?

The leg­is­la­tion for re­cruit­ing a CoP en­sures re­cruit­ment on­ly from the lim­it­ed Po­lice Ser­vice re­sources, es­chew­ing tal­ent ac­qui­si­tion from lo­cal, re­gion­al, and in­ter­na­tion­al pools. The peo­ple whose work ethos de­vel­oped in the ex­ist­ing taint­ed cul­ture are ex­pect­ed to change it. Why should Par­lia­ment be in­volved in a non­sen­si­cal, rep­u­ta­tion-dam­ag­ing, and con­vo­lut­ed re­cruit­ment process if at all?

The re­cruit­ment stan­dards are as ob­so­lete as the poli­cies gov­ern­ing the se­cu­ri­ty vet­ting of can­di­dates, per­for­mance man­age­ment, suc­ces­sion plan­ning, dis­ci­pline, ac­count­abil­i­ty, and the role of the tooth­less Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion.

Who is re­spon­si­ble for mon­i­tor­ing the op­er­a­tions of the Po­lice Ser­vice and na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies? A ro­bust in­spec­torate, like oth­er coun­tries, in­de­pen­dent of the agen­cies and the MoNS, is ur­gent­ly need­ed for any trans­for­ma­tion­al ini­tia­tive.

To para­phrase the 2023/2024 Re­port of the Par­lia­ment’s Com­mit­tee on Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, the coun­try is ex­pe­ri­enc­ing spi­ralling crime, and de­spite mul­ti­ple re­ports pro­vid­ing so­lu­tion op­tions, the po­lice ser­vice has not mean­ing­ful­ly em­braced progress through tech­nol­o­gy, mo­ti­va­tion of its peo­ple, and a mod­ern set of polic­ing prac­tices. An­gry voic­es de­mor­alise many con­sci­en­tious po­lice of­fi­cers, and the gov­ern­ment pours bil­lions in­to the ser­vice, ex­pect­ing change when the fun­da­men­tal prob­lem is gov­er­nance.

The na­tion’s gov­er­nance mod­el is in dire need of trans­for­ma­tion in line with the re­al­i­ties of the mod­ern world, as in­di­cat­ed in the Re­port of the re­cent Na­tion­al Ad­vi­so­ry Com­mit­tee on Con­sti­tu­tion Re­form.

Em­pow­er min­istries by re­cruit­ing com­pe­tent lead­ers who are ex­pe­ri­enced in gov­er­nance. Let most par­lia­men­tary rep­re­sen­ta­tives do what the peo­ple hired them for—to look af­ter their con­stituen­cies’ needs. We are at the point of in­flex­ion where the crime curve au­gurs dan­ger. Change the curve.