Mixed signals

IN ANNOUNCING Keith Scotland, SC, as Minister in the Ministry of National Security on July 25, the Prime Minister sent the country mixed signals.

The shake-up, only Dr Rowley’s third of that ministry in the past decade, expresses the Government’s intention to have tighter reins on the police while also preserving a sense of streamlined governance and downplaying the notion that drastic changes are required to address crime.

In bestowing Cabinet status to Mr Scotland, which will entitle the Port of Spain South MP to a seat at the Whitehall table and a pay raise from $17,410 to $41,030 – excluding allowances and hikes – Dr Rowley has created a rare beast.

We now have a hybrid official who walks and talks like a substantive minister but who is, in fact, not one.

The formal portfolio responsibilities of policing; offender management; illegal immigration; combating drug trafficking and money laundering; and drug interdiction are so central to the crime fight it is hard to think otherwise.

Few are convinced by the PM’s explanation that he has shifted these areas from Fitzgerald Hinds due to their volume alone.

Over the past three years, Mr Hinds had the same list of 41 responsibilities as he did when he first became Minister of National Security. It is clearly public pressure generated by the recent upsurge in violence that has precipitated this move.

A court case this week, in which the State admitted to unlawful conduct in an alarming extradition matter, also raised disturbing questions about police conduct, the line minister and the National Security Council as a whole and may have been a pivotal factor.

Dr Rowley had the option of appointing a parliamentary secretary to help Mr Hinds in the legislature. He could have appointed Mr Scotland as a non-Cabinet minister to assist, on par with eight others already so designated within other areas of government.

If Mr Scotland has been promoted, Mr Hinds has been demoted without being demoted.

Notably, both the Laventille West MP and Mr Scotland, as sitting MPs, will have to balance their portfolios with attending to constituencies.

Both have backgrounds in law, though Mr Scotland, whom Dr Rowley recently made silk, has decades of experience in high-profile cases.

Meanwhile, it is Mr Hinds, and not Mr Scotland, who has direct experience in policing.

What is clear is the Government seeks to underline the role played by law enforcement in crime.

And it is Mr Scotland’s aggressive questioning of police top brass, in his capacity as the former chairman of the parliamentary oversight committee which Mr Hinds once chaired, that most suggests what he uniquely brings to the ministry.

However, with a general election looming, time may be against him.