New crime expert comingBy CLINT CHAN TACK Friday, April 24 2009
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Thomas Clayton...
RETIRED CANADIAN army Major-General Cameron Ross is the latest foreign expert recruited by Government to try and help local security forces win the grim war against crime. Top national security officials yesterday confirmed Ross was the new man but could not say whether or not he was already in Trinidad.
The Prime Minister said a new crime initiative would be implemented after the Fifth Summit of the Americas which ended on Sunday. Immediately after the summit, the murder rate shot up dramatically with at least five murders being recorded in the country this week.
Born in Ottawa on February 8, 1949, the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute said Ross is the senior military advisor for the EnCana Corporation and president of HCR Security International Ltd. The latter provides security advice to governments and the private sector.
Ross’ military record states he retired from active military service in 2003 and spent most of his 35-year military career in command and operational appointments. He was attached to the Canadian Airborne Regiment during the 1974 war in Cyprus. From 1992 to 1993, Ross was a UN military observer in Angola during that country’s civil war.
Tabaquite MP Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj slammed Government’s latest hiring. “The army does not fight crime in Canada. How can a general from Canada know how to fight crime in Trinidad?” Maharaj asked. The Government under Patrick Manning has a history of hiring foreigners to help tackle crime, with minimal success.
In 2002, when current NCC chairman Howard Chin Lee was National Security Minister, the Manning government brought in consultant Thomas Clayton to advise police on how to deal with kidnappings for ransom. After rejecting an offer by former New York Mayor Rudy Guiliani to offer crime advice, the Manning Government then recruited US Professor Stephen Mastrofski in 2005 to develop a plan to transform the Police Service into an efficient crime-fighting organisation. But murders have steadily risen.
Last March, National Security Minister Martin Joseph told Parliament he was happy with the US$9 million (TT$55 million) paid to Mastrofski and his team from George Mason University. Mastrofski’s engagement ended last August.
British police officers from Scotland Yard were also recruited to train members of the Special Anti-Crime Unit of TT (SAUTT) in various crime fighting techniques.
