Commentary: Plan after plan after crime plan: Endless faith in foreign experts.
Trinidad and Tobago Guardian | 13 Sep 2009
In the long-running crime drama that is Trinidad and Tobago today, the story, so far, is that the bad guys have been able not only to pollute the good guys, but also to recruit them.
How else to explain the current sequence of episodes showing police officers trooping before the courts on criminal charges, or otherwise implicated in illegal possession of narcotics and arms? Citizens watching in astonishment and alarm could take comfort in apparent internal capacity to police and to purge the Police Service ranks. But the lesson of experience is that criminality tends to be always more extensive and deep-seated than the activity detected and exposed.
The stash of drugs and guns discovered in the ceiling of St Joseph Police Station may signal existence of a wider pattern of trafficking, in which police officers are identified as double-agent facilitators of crimes they are sworn to suppress.
This appears to confirm both the absence of resources adequate to meet the challenge of crime, and also the limits on the reliability of such resources already engaged and mobilised.
Public anxieties are hardly relieved by reports that police officers caught in, or suspected of serious illegalities, are liable, initially at least, only to be transferred.
Inside a supposedly disciplined organisation, a clear breakdown in discipline and order, entailing casual disregard of set procedure, explains some officers’ evident practice of keeping court-case exhibits in their personal possession.
Arrangements for recording, safe-keeping and tracking the whereabouts of such vital inputs into criminal justice appear to have been grievously compromised.
To the extent that this applies, trust in the police is eroded ever more deeply, and at least the management credibility of the officers in command inevitably called into question.
Such is the significance of the appeal publicly made to officers by acting Commissioner James Philbert, that they should return to central control court exhibits wrongfully stored at their homes.
That he should find it necessary to make this appeal is troubling; that he should be reduced to making conscience calls upon officers under his command is indicative of a wider disruption of order and of further disrepute to “governance” within the service.
In the face of all this, higher authorities have their work cut out. On September 7, the Finance Minister’s budget speech vowed (again) on behalf of the Government:
“We will strengthen our efforts to transform the organisational culture, operations, management systems and human resources of our protective services to enable the T&T Police Service to increase efficiency and effectiveness.”
Ms Tesheira avoided reference to much-advertised efforts over some four years, and involving US academic experts, to “transform” the Police Service.
Waging an epic, and so far losing, struggle against crime, her government continues to place reliance on plan, after plan, after plan.
In its latest turn to foreign-expert solutions, the government has embraced “in excess of 300 recommendations” by retired Canadian Major General Cameron H Ross.
Once again, a Ross Plan raises expectations for “transformation” of the police. And once again, government rhetoric cranks up to offer boundless faith, hope and prayer for happier outcomes than before.
“The message to the criminal is simple: you will be found and brought to justice, and you will feel the full brunt of the law,” said Ms Tesheira, rising to full height.
Now, T&T has to hope that this message is being effectively received, in the first instance, by those sworn to uphold and enforce the law.
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September 19, 2009 at 12:30 am
triniwarao
We lack confidence as a people. With all our natural talent and accomplishments we still do not realise that we have the capacity to organise and solve our own problems.
The reliance on foreign “experts” is not at all surprising seeing that our ramshackle systems were imported wholesale from elsewhere without the required indigenous tinkering to adapt them fully to our needs. Why shouldn’t we then turn to the vendors of these colonial legacy systems if they are in need of maintenance and upgrade?
Foreign consultants and experts are not the enemy. They are in the business of selling their services. They will enter wherever they are invited AND paid. I am not maligning the experts mentioned in the article above but there are some who, if they understand that we are willing to pay handsomely for snake oil, repackaged information or advice that you could get free of charge from any intoxicated barfly lecturing to unappreciative audiences, will slap on two shiny covers and sell us that too.
Our reliance on their recommendations is a sign of our unwillingness to accept total responsibility for what we like to call our independence. In many ways for our reluctant nation that state has been more of a burden than a liberation.
Trinbagonians, WE belong here. WE are born here and many of us will die here. What happens to us in between is up to us. When the money is gone and the foreign experts move on to greener pastures, maybe we will understand what a pleasant game this has all been for those, both inside and outside, who benefitted.
WE need to make a start, to stop agreeing to be overwhelmed by the problem. Trinbagonians have displayed incredible patience up to this point and although we should have started yesterday, today cannot be too late. I believe that Trinbagonians will rally around any agency that demonstrates a consistent, honest, efficient approach to making their lives better. We know what is not working. We don’t need anyone else to tell us that and since even the recommendations of foreign experts can rot on shelves, we can admit that in the end, WE are the ones to be held accountable.
Peace.