Prime Minister Keith Rowley has appointed Foreign Affairs Minister Dennis Moses Minister in the National Security Ministry, assisting National Security Minister Edmund Dillon. The Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) announced that development yesterday.
The OPM stated Moses would operate with Dillon in addition to his (Moses’) responsibility as the Minister of Foreign and Caricom Affairs. The Prime Minister mandated that Moses would assist Dillon “in the performance of such duties as the minister (Dillon) may specify from time-to-time.”
Rowley’s move to give the National Security Minister some “assistance” comes in the wake of rising crime and tougher measures by Government after the murder last week of two schoolboys from Success/Laventille Secondary School.
Denelson Smith and Mark Richards were pulled out of a taxi and shot dead while going home after school.
Within 24 hours Rowley installed an army presence in Laventille and other crime “hot spot” areas around T&T. A handful of murders last weekend, however, followed the PM’s move. Since then none had been noted until another murder was reported yesterday in east Trinidad.
In the interim, Government has been moving to beef up its security framework. The National Security Council was due to meet Tuesday, the same day Rowley visited the National Operations Centre. He received a presentation from Strategic Services Agency head Col George Robinson and toured the facility.
The PM was accompanied on that visit by Attorney General and Legal Affairs ministers Faris Al-Rawi and Stuart Young, Dillon and Moses. Government officials said the appointment of Moses would consolidate the Government’s onslaught on the crime situation. Neither Dillon or Moses were available for comment.
Moses, who has a BSC in agriculture, MSC in agronomy, also has a post graduate diploma in international affairs. He served as representative at the Organisation of the American States General Secretariat in Guyana and in Barbados as the deputy representative of the Inter-American Institute for Co-operation on Agriculture (IICA) and in other capacities in other countries for six years.
He joined CAB International‘s UK headquarters and was also the regional representative of CAB International.
Opposition Whip Ganga Singh, however, questioned the appointment, saying: “The Prime Minister’s move to appoint the Foreign Affairs Minister has, for one, demonstrated a lack of confidence in the National Security Minister. It’s also baffling, since how could the Minister of Foreign Affairs be involved in local affairs.”