Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley says that a lot more will be hap­pen­ing dur­ing the State of Emer­gency (SoE) as more was ex­pect­ed from po­lice of­fi­cers and in­tel­li­gence agen­cies. He added that even af­ter the SoE, Gov­ern­ment will re­main en­gaged and try to im­prove its re­sponse to the crim­i­nal el­e­ment.

How­ev­er, Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, while sup­port­ing Mon­day’s mo­tion to ex­tend the SoE for three months, called for a re­view of it in a month’s time.

Both spoke on Mon­day night as the de­bate on the mo­tion to ex­tend the SoE, an­nounced on De­cem­ber 30, 2024, was wrap­ping up. The mo­tion, re­quir­ing on­ly a sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty of votes for pas­sage, was passed by both sides. The SoE was deemed nec­es­sary to pro­tect cit­i­zens fol­low­ing a spike in mur­ders and ex­pect­ed gang­land reprisals.

Row­ley not­ed there were “so many con­tra­dic­tions” in the op­po­si­tion’s ar­gu­ments that he said he was un­cer­tain “which side” was their po­si­tion. He said the most ob­vi­ous mea­sure­ment for the SoE is whether the num­ber of in­stances of out­ra­geous ac­tion would have been re­duced. “Ob­vi­ous­ly we see it—11 peo­ple had been mur­dered since the com­ing in­to be­ing of this SoE by crim­i­nals who haven’t giv­en up.

“No­body said that by de­clar­ing an SoE there’ll be no mur­der. As I’m speak­ing now there’s some imp out there think­ing about who he might kill tonight,” said the Prime Min­is­ter.

On com­plaints of low vis­i­bil­i­ty of pa­trols, he said the TTDF was con­duct­ing joint pa­trols, but it was im­pos­si­ble to put a pa­trol on every street 24 hours a day or put a po­lice of­fi­cer in every door­way for 24 hours. He said a lot more would hap­pen as more was ex­pect­ed from po­lice of­fi­cers and in­tel­li­gence agen­cies.

“Al­so, Gov­ern­ment is see­ing some ad­di­tion­al ac­tion by the po­lice and more ac­tiv­i­ty by the TTDF, and the lead­ers of the TTPS and TTDF are dri­ving the ju­nior of­fi­cers. They’re see­ing some im­prove­ment in the short or­der, and for an­oth­er three months, we’ll be able to keep that on and we will ... prune the spike,” he said.

On what hap­pens af­ter the SoE, Row­ley said, “We’ll re­main en­gaged and try to im­prove our re­sponse to the crim­i­nal el­e­ment, and we ex­pect that it is not on­ly the Gov­ern­ment but all as­pects of the state’s re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. I mean we all have to tell the crim­i­nals, we see you, we hear you, we know you, we will catch you, we will con­vict you, and we will re­strict you. That’s what it has to be.”

Ham­strung by the PolSC

Row­ley said de­spite do­ing sig­nif­i­cant train­ing of of­fi­cers at the Po­lice Bar­racks, the Op­po­si­tion at­tacked the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, “as though the Gov­ern­ment hand-picked a CoP that is in­com­pe­tent. It is you all who put that arrange­ment in place, where the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion had to se­lect, by de­tailed process, and put be­fore us their find­ings, and it is from that we have to choose. This Gov­ern­ment doesn’t have the op­tion to choose a Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er, that’s our choice.

“The law ham­strings us in­to ac­cept­ing what comes to us from the Com­mis­sion (PolSC). And as we may be dis­sat­is­fied, as you’re mak­ing a case of it, with the per­for­mance of our cur­rent Com­mis­sion­er—if that’s what you’re say­ing—the Gov­ern­ment can­not jump in and rec­ti­fy that.”

He said there was de­pen­dence on the com­mis­sion to be­gin the search for a new po­lice com­mis­sion­er, and “Gov­ern­ment doesn’t have it with­in its pow­er in law to in­ter­vene in that,” he ex­plained.

One-month re­view

Mean­while, the Op­po­si­tion Leader not­ed that when her gov­ern­ment called a state of emer­gency in 2011, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert had called for it to be re­viewed af­ter a month.

She sug­gest­ed the same be done now “to see where it’s go­ing.”

Ask­ing how it will work in the elec­tion sea­son, amid Car­ni­val and its im­pact on the econ­o­my, Per­sad-Bisses­sar not­ed re­ports that some cruise ships had dropped T&T from their itin­er­ary.

She called for an­swers as to whether or not Cab­i­net had dis­cussed Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds’ sto­ry about a par­ent seek­ing a cur­few in the SoE ahead for chil­dren.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the Gov­ern­ment would feel fool­ish hav­ing “rant­ed” about her gov­ern­ment’s SoE in 2011 and dis­miss­ing her pro­pos­als for one to be called last year, which could have saved 623 lives.

“I will not ob­ject to this mo­tion as I don’t be­lieve this will suc­ceed—noth­ing the Gov­ern­ment touch­es suc­ceeds,” she said.