By Stabroek News
(Trinidad Express) The decision to remove personal security detail from former Prime Ministers Stuart Young and Dr Keith Rowley came after a threat assessment was presented to the Government by the T&T Police Service.
This was revealed by Minister of Homeland Security Roger Alexander, speaking with the Express yesterday.
Alexander emphasised that while the removal of Young鈥檚 detail may have been within a day of the Government passing legislation that removed the former prime minister鈥檚 pension, the two were not connected.
鈥淭his decision has nothing to do with the Bill being passed. In fact, if I鈥檓 not mistaken, the former former鈥檚 (Rowley) detail was removed about a week ago. So, it was just coincidental that the former (Young) was done yesterday (Tuesday). Basically, there was a threat assessment done on the former prime minister (Young) and the former former prime minister (Rowley), which was done by the police. In this assessment, it was determined that the PSD (Personal Security Detail) for both men were no longer necessary,鈥 he said.
He continued: 鈥淎ny threat against them, if you put it like that, no longer exists. And now these men from the PSD can now be placed elsewhere, and for other work, whether for mobile patrols, foot patrols, in other units, or even as PSD for other VIPs. Your entitlement is your entitlement, yes, but at the end of the day, when these assessments are made in keeping with the police operating procedures, then we have to abide by that.鈥
While he acknowledged the optics of this decision being made following the passing of the bill, he noted that the Government had made a decision based on the information provided to them by the police service, and there was no ulterior motive.
鈥淭he Government is not putting our hands into those things. We are allowing the institutions responsible to do their jobs, and report back to us, and then we will make decisions on the information that came from those institutions. And based on the information returned to us, we treated with it in a certain manner and certain decisions were made. But it has nothing to do with the Bill being passed. I would have seen the assessment being done for some time now, and would have been made aware of its contents, even before the Bill was passed and this has been in motion,鈥 Alexander said.