Charles: Govt scraped barrel for Hinds to head national security

NAPARIMA MP Rodney Charles questioned the Prime Minister's appointment of Fitzgerald Hinds as new Minister of National Security as scraping the barrel for talent, describing him as a serial non-performer. Hinds was previously Minister of Youth Development and National Service.

In a statements issued on Tuesday, Charles predicted Hinds will be no better but predictably worse than his predecessor Stuart Young, whom Charles dubbed incompetent.

"Hinds is visionless, incompetent, clueless, slow on the uptick and with no known track record in any previously assigned ministerial portfolio," he hit.

"In no other country would a non-performer like Hinds rise to the position of National Security Minister and be a cause for celebration. But this is TT where in Rowley's Cabinet, mediocrity, loquaciousness, cluelessness and underperformance are pointedly celebrated and richly rewarded."

Charles asked how under the parliamentary system could Hinds be chairman of Parliament's Joint Select Committee on National Security, an oversight committee, to now oversee himself as minister.

He saw border security as Hinds' priority.

"With the arrival of the highly contagious Brazilian strain of covid19, Hinds' singular focus must be on accomplishing what his predecessor failed miserably to do. He must finally ensure that our borders are closed to all illegal migrants who arrive, untested for covid, at our shores."

Charles said it was no mere coincidence that a South American virus strain has reportedly been detected in South Trinidad.

"This incompetent PNM administration cannot deny that its lackadaisical, nonchalant approach to border security, has allowed thousands of illegal immigrants to enter our country. Arguably, this is mainly responsible for the major National Security and health risks present today."

He said during Young’s tenure, the South West peninsula was open to everything from guns, ammunition, drugs, human trafficking and covid19.

"Can visionless Hinds succeed where his garrulous predecessor failed?"

Charles asked if Hinds will be more preoccupied with increasing the Strategic Services Agency's (SSA’s) spying capabilities rather than confronting the biggest national security issue of our porous borders?

"What are newly appointed Minister Hinds’ plans for crime except wasting more millions on the underperforming SSA, expensively equipped with state of the art Israeli spy technology?

"Will he improve the slothful judiciary? Will he fully equip the ailing Forensic Science Centre? Will he improve conditions in remand? Will he stop the guns arriving from Venezuela? Will he provide alternatives to inner city youth to counter the attraction of gangs? Will he improve our abysmal crime detection rates? Will he reduce extra-judicial killings by the state?"