As the government was preparing to bring a motion for the State of Emergency to be extended on recommendations from the Commissioner of Police, Minister of Homeland Security, Roger Alexander spoke about the reasons why and more on TV6's Morning Edition.
00:00Speaking on the Morning Edition, Homeland Security Minister Roger Alexander explained why the government was seeking to extend the state of emergency just hours before the motion was brought forward in the parliament.
00:11It's because the SOE worked so well that we are looking to extend it.
00:19Alexander says the SOE was not their first choice plan to solve crime, but it is something that they had to continue with as a result of intelligence and other conditions which they met on coming into office.
00:30It is difficult for a government to come in, into governance and meeting what they met and leaving it like that.
00:43And in order to take the type of steps that we had to, we had to go immediately.
00:52And funny enough, though, when it came about in terms of our decision as it relates to the SOE, which is not, which is not our crime plan, Mr. Hopkinson.
01:10The SOE came about as a result of intelligence of persons wanting to take a particular course of action against a particular type of persons in the public domain.
01:25Alexander showed that the government does have a plan, but they are waiting for the right time to rule it out.
01:30We have a 10-point strategic plan for Trinidad and Tobago, and because of the information that we have, we have not yet begun.
01:42It's a plan for every year because we are looking at the future.
01:47It's a plan for every year, so you will see things happening every year somewhat differently.
01:53And we are giving it, we are looking at it short-term, medium-term, long-term.
01:57And if we start something and we are looking at it, we give it a time frame, and it seems like it is not working effectively in the manner in which we want it to, we will change it.
02:07Because we are thinking minds, Mr. Hopkinson, and crime is our business.
02:13We look at it in terms of fixing it.
02:17The minister blames the last regime for the out-of-control crime situation, saying that they had not put any plans in place.
02:23But he said this government intends to do things differently to bring about the demise of the criminal syndicate in the country.
02:30We intend to dismantle, destroy that criminal syndicate that lived in Trinidad for a number of years.
02:43And the only thing that was done to them, they were being fueled by the support, by the last regime, for them.
02:55And we don't intend to do the same thing with Hopkinson and expect a different result.
03:00So our approach is one that is more strategic, more intelligent-driven, and more people-friendly.
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