ROWLEY’S WEIRD CRIME CONFESSION

PRIME Minister Dr. Keith Rowley launched the regional crime talks with a bizarre assertion.

The Prime Minister suggested that national security leadership is not critical in the fight against the crime epidemic.

He pointed to the several security office-holders in recent years – but did not analyse their respective performances – and concluded that amounted merely to “musical chairs.”

That conclusion is radically different from what he advocated on the eve of the 2015 general election, when his manifesto called for “the necessary leadership expertise.”

This week, he seemed to indicate that quality management was not crucial in a life-and-death portfolio with an annual budget of $6 billion, the largest single assignment of taxpayer funds.

To apply Rowley’s weird reasoning to the corporate world, it means a manager would be retained despite consistently failing to meet his clearly-defined objectives.

It suggests that performance evaluations are meaningless.

The Prime Minister said: “Clearly, the problem does not exist and grow because of a shortage of ministers…”

But how about a lack of ministerial competence?

After all, Rowley confessed to “a plethora of problems, ranging from petty theft, to school violence, home invasions, domestic violence, sexual abuse, human trafficking, drive-by shootings, drug-gang warfare, mindless daily revenge murders, etc.”

Yet the line minister has job security!

Rowley’s defence of the status quo is contrary to his hard-line stand seven and a half years ago, when he pledged to rescue “a nation in crisis… the tenth most homicidal and violent country in the world.”

T&T’s collapse into the sixth most violent society is an indication of an explosion in homicides, bloody attacks, drug and gun-running, along with a pathetically low detection rate, and unprotected borders.

In 2015, he promised to improve surveillance, boost police resources, better utilise the military and coast guard, “stem the flow of drugs,” and set up various protection agencies.

But at the regional crime talk shop, he conceded that “the problem of criminality and violence was not dealt with sufficiently, in a much better timeframe, in the homes, in the schools, in the prisons, in the courts…”

Between those two periods, thousands have been mowed down by armed murderers, or assaulted, robbed and, in other ways, had their lives, families and businesses destroyed.

Many have hastily uprooted their loved ones from what Rowley now calls “a creeping normalcy.”

The PM has admitted that “we allowed slow, moderate, deviant behaviourial trends to increase” to the point where “morals and values are now considered flexible.”

And still, the Prime Minister does not see value in providing fresh and competent anti-crime leadership.