A letter of resignation ought to have accompanied National Security Minister Martin Joseph's admission of failure on crime, UNC Deputy Leader Jack Warner stated yesterday.
"Any Minister who admits to the magnitude of such a failure should have done the honourable thing and resigned," Warner said. But, he added, in the PNM, nobody was held accountable for anything which is "why it is very easy for people to get away with murder under the PNM and why people are rewarded for being non-achievers (under the PNM)".
Told that supporters of Joseph were saying that he was "man" enough to be honest and admit to failure, Warner quipped: "And it takes an even bigger man to resign. His colleagues who are all little boys would of course revel in the fact that he, unlike them, has admitted to failure and has admitted to the limits of his capabilities. Because I tell you the traffic on the roads, the flooding etc, all these things are reasons for us as a nation to be angry," Warner said.
But, the Chaguanas West MP stated that the Prime Minister was the most culpable of all, because he insulted the country when he reappointed Joseph as Minister of National Security. "If any indictment were to fall on anyone, it is (on) the Prime Minister," Warner said, adding that the PM had a duty to ensure during this term of office that "he does not impose on the country the evils of the past".
Warner was also highly critical of the Police Commissioner: "You know what sickens me to the core? In advanced countries where crime is a problem, on the first day of the year, you see images where the police, the government, the security forces are in battle gear fighting crime. You see it in Toronto, in New York, in London. The Commissioner of Police with his men in the hot spots in battle gear. So I would have thought that my Commissioner of Police on New Year's morning would have been with his men in East Port of Spain, in Laventille and Morvant. But no, my Commissioner of Police was dancing away in the night, while seven people were killed. What are you saying to the country which is infested with crime, while you dancing the night away, kissing his wife...while people are being murdered. And that man is given a one-year extension."
He added that the Commissioner was following the PM whose only image to the country on Christmas Day was to recommend the drinking of a bottle of Louis XIV which sells at US$1,000 a bottle to deal with the common cold.
Warner also wanted to know if anyone held "those guys who have come from England" (Scotland Yard detectives) to account. "Has anyone asked them to account for their stewardship? They know the beaches of Maracas and Las Cuevas in the last few years better than I know in the last 30 years? Has he ever asked Stephen Mastrofski to account for the kind of obscene salary he has been receiving for the past three years? How do you judge his success? What are the results?"
In April 2007 Joseph revealed in Parliament that $80.8 million was paid to Mastrofski and Partners over eight years to transform the Police Service.
Warner said the Government was trying "to steal a march" on the Opposition by bringing this motion on crime. "They were also trying to give the illusion of collective responsibility, of consultation and of trying to find a solution. No way we are going to fall for that. Absolutely not! If they want to bring a motion, let them put in it in words, in song or even in sign language, for themselves...Let them go to their Minister of Education, let her word it for them," he said.
Warner held out no hope for Joseph's new crime plan. Noting that this country had had more crime plans than any other nation, he said Canada with a population of 40 million, had 116 murders in 2006.
"So there are lessons to be learnt from Canada, but if you dancing the night away, you have no lessons to learn," he said.
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