Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: The best insight, instant feedback, accountability, the all new Talk Radio Freedom 106.5 with that being said, let's turn our attention to Dr. Shane Mohammed, Political scientist as we continue for the next 15 minutes or so another conversation, another side to the PDOs, to the SOE and the Fallouts that could be expected. Good morning to you Dr. Muhammad.
[00:00:24] Speaker B: Good morning and how are you?
[00:00:25] Speaker A: I am good. You know I a few moments before you spoke with attorney at law and legal luminary Fareed Ali on many issues resulting on these PDOs, these detention orders and whether or not citizens of this great republic have any recourse whatsoever if they have been placed on a pdo. And what we unearthed this morning, constitutionally of course enshrined there in those documents is that there is no recourse.
As a matter of fact, we are being told that police officers and when and even the ministers, the minister, sorry of Homeland Security when he signs these PDOs based on intelligence gathering, they usually are very detailed and comprehensive and it's not done willy nilly or haphazard or arbitrarily. That's what they want us to believe. That's what was said.
Persons coming out now of these prisons facilities, ECRC and others, they do not have any. They don't have. They don't possess the legal right to suit the state nor do they have the right to even get financial compensation unless it's some special hearing where it can be absolutely proven that the person was held arbitrarily or without due proper cause and they lost financially, maybe their cars, whatever, and they can seek redress through the courts, the tribunal with the Her Excellency signing off for some kind of public fund payment back to that person. But by and large it doesn't seem like they can. That is coming from one attorney.
From your learned position as a political scientist, can we safely anticipate that this government would face a major fallout based on the fact that persons were held in some instances six months, in others a year plus on these preventative detention orders and have not been charged?
[00:02:21] Speaker B: Well, you think I've watched this. So let me just start by saying thank you for having me.
Freeze made a very good point about the details of the PDO and which this is.
And I was going to come and say the very same thing that it's not something that you can use willy nilly. The Constitution doesn't allow for that and unfortunately in a couple days we would celebrate 50 years of republicanism and I would be one of those who would advocate that it's time to have a serious look and examination and assessment of our Republican constitution as it relates to constitutional rights of citizens of Colorado and Tobago, but also as it relates and pertains to what we do and what tools we have available to us to use in our work towards preventing and, you know, reducing crime. We can't just simply be relying on a state of emergency.
I think we've gotten to the point where a state of emergency ought to be a state of emergency and therefore there are other in this, the 21st century, in the age of technology, advanced knowledge, innovativeness, there ought to be mechanisms and techniques, strategies that we utilize beyond just what is in the Constitution to provide us with frameworks and mechanisms to deal with what is in front of us. With that said, if there was to be a fallout, we would have probably seen it already.
We would have legal minds like Fareed would have known, would have had the knowledge, would have had the approach to how to get the compensation, if any at all. For those who have been behind, you know, you incarcerated, I don't know what you want to detain, sorry by the PDOs, but he's right. The PDOs are preventative detention orders based on not just, you know, primary intelligence, but it would have been in depth intelligence that would have said to those in authority that these persons are, you know, involved or might be aligned or you know, speaking to. They may have information that may be important for us to use or important to the state in how we approach the issue of crime and criminality and gang and whatever else is involved, including in a state of emergency.
So in terms of fallout, I think we would have been already there if there was to be a fallout and we would have heard from the society. Because one thing I can safely say is that the society has not been silent in, in the issues and anything that they're not happy about.
I think it's a learning experience for the government. I think more than ever we do need to re examine what is the apparatus in front of us and how can we improve it? What new can we add to it so we don't have a repeat of this going forward.
I think the society scoffs at the state of emergency. The because they see it as a lame duck approach.
State of emergency should be, as I said earlier, a state of emergency or to have certain, you know, certain aspects, characteristics that gives us the thought, changes our behaviors that this is not just another ordinary day in Trinidad and Tobago. But we, you know, I did hear certain people part of the Society talking about, well, there's no curfew and we don't have any, you know, restriction of movement. And maybe if there was at some point in time in this entire thing, people would not have scoffed at it and say, well, you know, there are others who say, well, they need this. The security services need the state of emergency because of the powers that it gives them so that they can do their work in going in and, you know, using the pdos and taking people and questioning without having the repercussions of what you're saying, compensation and constitutional motions and whatnot. So there's a two and a for and against. There are the pros and cons.
But the overall answer to this is I don't necessarily see India being a fallout. What I do do think is that the society expects that the government would come with more robust, more innovative frameworks that will not take us down this road again. And I think if there were to be an extension, society would be frustrated by it.
[00:07:31] Speaker A: The thing about it is, do you see this going, going forward affecting them at the polls?
[00:07:39] Speaker B: It's too early.
[00:07:40] Speaker A: It's too late to predict.
[00:07:41] Speaker B: Too early to say that. It's too early to say that.
To be able to say that this is going to affect them at the polls is also juxtaposed against who are you voting? Who are they going to be? Who is the society going to be voting for?
And the most likely thing is that the society will then look towards the opposition and the opposition has not risen and they have not arisen to the point where the society will confidently, vehemently say, we're going in that direction. So on both sides, there's work to be done, there's organization, there's, you know, things need to be a little bit more orderly.
The opposition has to get their house in order effectively, so to say it that there's going to be repercussions. As it pertains to the polls, it's too early at this stage. There's a local government election that is due within the next year.
That might be a litmus test, but that is also dependent on if people go out and vote. You can't measure a winning, quote, unquote, a win at the local government polls by either side. If there's a 30 or 29 or 27% voter turnout. That does not make sense.
[00:09:00] Speaker A: All right, let's take a call quickly. Good morning.
[00:09:04] Speaker B: Good morning. I do not know if Dr. Mohammed is hearing me since perhaps he's speaking to you on the phone. Are you hearing me? Dr. Mohammed, he's not hearing me, baby. I don't know if you could signal to him to put on his video because I asked him a question. He not here, and I'm not sure that gonna work.
[00:09:20] Speaker A: All right, well, Jen, summarize your question quickly and I'll pass It on to Dr. Muhammad for you.
[00:09:24] Speaker B: Jesus Christ,
[00:09:26] Speaker A: David.
[00:09:27] Speaker B: That is. That is very difficult. I don't know. Ask him to put on his radio next time. I'll try. Okay.
[00:09:31] Speaker A: All right, so, Dr. Mohammed, I want you to listen. You. You were not able to hear that caller?
[00:09:35] Speaker B: No, I wasn't even.
[00:09:36] Speaker A: All right, so we had to work on that.
All right, we had to work on that and see how best we can. We can get it. Because this text. This caller had a question, but because you weren't able to hear, he didn't want to ask for me to translate. Good morning.
All right, so as you mentioned, it's too early for us to. To figure out whether the polls. Remember you mentioned something a few moments ago about the readiness of the opposition at this time. We saw that same thing happening with the UNC when they were in opposition and we questioned their readiness. However, they were victorious in 2025. So one has to wonder how the geopolitical landscape will shift coming for 2030. Let's take this call. Good morning.
[00:10:14] Speaker B: I hope by now.
[00:10:16] Speaker A: I don't know.
[00:10:16] Speaker B: Let me. Let me ask a question.
[00:10:18] Speaker A: All right, hold on. Dr. Muhammad, go ahead and ask the question.
One sentence. I'll pass it on.
[00:10:25] Speaker B: Dr. Mohammed, as a social mechanic, do you believe the government is facing emphasis in the right area?
What they are doing is doing the same thing the same way over and over and expecting a different result.
They are packing national security with everything, even the kitchen sink. 2,000 more police officers, 500 more prison officers. ZOZO this, that. What about really and truly going onto social programs with that very same money? Wouldn't they get a better result that way? All right, listen, I hope you hear me.
[00:10:59] Speaker A: All right, so he was talking about the resources that the government is packing in one direction in terms of the ZOZO bill. More police officers on the ground, buying police car. If we take some of those same resources and channel it. Sorry, channel it into the direction for social programs as we know they. They would have disbanded ccc, Mylat and other programs. Would we not see a better result and not have to resort to these type of harsh legislative punitive procedures in going forward?
[00:11:29] Speaker B: So I understand the idea behind the CCC and the mylat. Here's the problem with the CCC and the mylat. Right. The CCC and the MYLAT are programs, they are training programs, they're development programs. Even with mylat, there is a training program that gave them a two year, a two year window where they were involved in a program.
The next step beyond that is that when we train people under CCC and MYLAT and anything else that is good for ensuring that their skill sets that are developed, we must be able to transition them into the world of work.
So we must be able to give them the opportunity to then move into something that they can have sustainable. And that's where the issue with MYLAT and CCC will.
So you would train these people, they would be in the program, you'd see them doing something, they would be in an apprenticeship program and then after two years the apprenticeship program ends and they are left out there with nothing to transition into in terms of work. That was the issue with the CCC and the mylat. You can't have people doing this program and then in the apprenticeship program and then the apprenticeship program leaves and there's nothing. No other apparatus is in place, no other partnership is in place to absorb them. So the absorption into the world of work is where we were lacking there. The government is saying that, okay, how about if we just put them into why have mylat? When you have the police academy, you have mic, you have nesc, you have the Defense force, you have Coast Guard, etc, etc, etc, you screen them, you train them and then you give them employment. It's the same thing that the CCC would do. It is the same thing they might allow to do, same training, same discipline, taking them off the street, giving them something lucrative to do and then transition into full time employment. I understand what the caller is saying, but on the flip side there was a gap and that gap allowed people to fall on the wayside. And that is not what social programs ought to be.
Social programs ought to just not be about development and training. It should supposed to be a protection and not protection protection in the perspective that the state protects them by ensuring that they have a livelihood to go forward into.
[00:13:45] Speaker A: When we look at what you just explained there, absorption into lucrative jobs and so forth, some of these persons would have been sent, would have been gone, would have went to my lot with criminal past. Some of them would have entered CCC programs, mic and all these programs following a little bit of criminal history, maybe not murder, but maybe a little larceny, a little breaking and enter, you know, little robbery and they now have a record attached to the name they come out of the prison system, maybe after a six month stint in the jail, they get into these programs where they can contribute productively to society going forward.
But here's the thing.
You know, we seldom as a society, not a government, accept persons in our employee if they do not possess a clean certificate of character. So we're talking about a person who was locked up for arms and ammunition at one point, a little robbery during their preteen, their teen years. Not preteen, sorry, during their late teens.
And now they're 27. They joined the MYLAT program and they did well. They now, you know, they would have turned around their life and they're looking for employment into the defense force. They can be absorbed. But guess what?
You remember there is an ad put out every time officers or persons attempt to join the defense force and the police service, the prisons and what have you asking the public for intel on them because no doubt they would have produced clean certificate of characters. However, if we are talking about indoctrinating persons into wholesome employment, into those military jobs, can we safely say as a society we are ready for individuals who would have had a criminal past, gone through these, these disciplinary programs and we are ready to put arms and ammunition into their hands, knowing their criminal history.
[00:15:41] Speaker B: Well, I think we all understand that the original answer to that question would be no. But when you have programs like CCT and MYLAS and Vision and Mission and all of that. Right. And Vision and Mission is doing fantastic work and has been over the years doing very good work in rehabilitation. I mean, back in the day when I was in the first version of the Ministry of Justice, they was talking about rehabilitation and restorative justice and the importance of restorative justice in the framework of ensuring the society is better. And that those who I like your point, the point about the preteens and the ones who were in the teenage life, yes, that may have done some kind of stupidness because we as a society and the systems feel them and that we didn't put the frameworks in place or we didn't advocate enough for the frameworks in place.
They went and they did something stupid and they get, quote, unquote condemned for the rest of their life. That's a very, very harsh reality. And that's something that governments, successive governments, governments today now have to work towards improving and fixing.
The bottom line is though, whether we put them into the protective services and whether we put them anywhere, we should give them an opportunity to progress and transition into something lucrative where I mean, when we look at the prisons, right? We have people in the prisons who are doing teaching, they are preaching, they are helping mentoring others because they spent so many years in the system and they've now teaching them how to read and write. And I mean, we have artists and we do that artistic exhibition every year. And I mean, we've seen the results of if we put some effort into frameworks that can rehabilitate and restore use that restorative justice aspect, that could change unfortunately as well, we have to accept that the advancement of our society as it pertains to criminality is like a runaway horse. And the government is charged with the responsibility of making hard decisions and coming up, as I say from the start with innovative frameworks that will, you know, one, limit it, two, prevent it, three, try to, you know, cut it all together. But that's a very hard crown, heavy crown to carry. But nonetheless it rests on them now and they have no choice but to come with something good because they are also under heavy scrutiny for whether they do good, bad or indifferent. And even if they make mistakes and our society, regardless of government come, government go, our society is not very forgiving for those who make mistakes. Why? Because the society has become frustrated and the society puts the responsibility into the hands of politicians now and in the past and will in the future to fix the system. So when ministers walk around saying they will fix it, that's a motto, a personal and professional motto that they must stand by and they must show the results of at the end of the day. So when you talk about, and you ask the question about what would be the repercussions at the election, all of these things will be added to the scorecard as well. So it will.
The scorecard is starting to get populated. Does the scorecard by the time we are now approaching the second year, by the time the two and a half year mark passes into the three year mark, we will have a very, very better idea as to what the society thinks. And you could use the local government election not as well a definite thing. You could use it as a yardstick to start to measure what needs to be done, how it needs to be done, what needs to be improved. Because that is also something, if it's catastrophic, but you have a 15 or 20% voter turnout, then you have 80 people who are saying I don't want to part of nobody and I didn't feel like it and I didn't think the candidate was good and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But you have little measures that is going to start to populate the scorecard at the end of the, let's say from three years in my estimation, by the time the third year for five year term comes around, people start going in a particular direction. Give an example. By the time you talk about the UNC having to get the house in order and then you know, people having doubts that they could do it.
That was in 2015, 2016, 2017. By the time 2018, 2019 came around, they started to build out 2020 general election. We had to deal with COVID 19.
They gained a seat.
Then they lost, but they lost. Then they started again. 21 22. By the time the 23 general local government elections came, they improved in the number of seats that they had collectively out of the 141, but they maintained the 7. 7. That was the third year leading to the general election. 24. And then you saw what happened in 25. So start measuring it. We are now approaching the second year. By the time the third year comes around, if things don't start to get an improvement and you don't start see things changing, then it would be also a signal for the government to start to reexamine what the approach is. So there's time, but time even in saying there's time, if they don't keep their promises and fix it the way they say they would fix it, the society will start to react the case
[00:21:18] Speaker A: and I mean when we think about that and as you mentioned, it will be a yardstick looking at local government results and how persons come out and vote that will tell this government whether or not they're on the right trajectory. But as we look at how things are unfolding politically with the CPAP that some persons on the other side feel was such a lucrative and venturous thing to keep on board, what are your thoughts politically as it looks to as government's handling of these initiatives that was geared towards a learning curve or a stepping stone for individuals who have made a career out of it and no doubt in some instances would have dominated certain areas where others couldn't get a chance in. Was government wrong for disbanding these things?
[00:22:05] Speaker B: David I believe in effective communication. I think communication is very important. Discussions, dialogue, explanations, talking about the what, the why, the how, the when, the who.
And I use that even when I teach and when I lecture my students and I told I even tell them in their communication approach, even at the executive levels that they work in part of it. Their training has to be that they understand the importance in answering critical questions. When you answer the what, the why, the how, the who and when, especially those five questions. You give information and enough information. Where there's understanding, where there's engagement, where there's a sense of belonging, where, you know, people know what they're about, their sense of purpose, where they're heading. It's the same thing that applies when a government communicates with its people. Because at the end of the day, the people are not just subjects people. The people in fact are the employers.
What they have done though, is that they've put the responsibility into the hands of those who have been elected to carry out their business.
So think of the people like the board of directors and the government as the executive that discharges their duties and they inform.
If something goes wrong or does not go in the way that the society likes, then they're the experts that will come out from the board of directors and say, well, why did you do this? Or how come you didn't do this? And the responsibility is to respond effectively so that there's enough understanding as it pertains to CPEP and erp.
I think the original plan for CP and ERP was also like to become that program that gave people a stepping stone towards something better and it led to permanence.
If the understanding is that it was supposed to be a stepping stone and we'd never created the next step which was transitioning into something else then, and it became permanent, then you had to explain to the society what happened. Now if there was criminality and gang activity and gang relation and all of those things, they've said that, fine, you're disbanding it. Okay, for how long then? To create into what? Now I see that there's the NPOPS from the Ministry of Local Government and I see the minister outright and as I will always say, the Minister of Local Government does her work. There are many people who may not like her approach. I think that she's one of the best performing ministers getting out there on an independent night and being on the ground and helping. And she's actually practicing her job, not just in office, but also from a practice perspective. Right, that's one thing. But the explanation, I think that everybody still has a question mark is is it that NPOPS is going to permanently replace the CPAP and European? And the simple answer to that question is yes.
The next question would be, well, what are the terms and conditions of that? And then the answer to that should give everyone the comfort. On the flip side, you also see that persons have been employed by the Ministry of Works and Infrastructure. Same thing applies So I believe that the backlash from CPAP and ERP is as a result of ineffective communication. And I think it takes nothing out of any government. I did also back in the day, between 2020 and 2025, I even had a conversation on national with then former Minister Gadsby Daly. And I said, minister, I think it is important that your government communicates with its people and have a good conversation to the point where there's an understanding of direction, purpose and belonging. And if that alone, that alone is effectively done, people will be on the same page with you. But you can't have a government galloping ahead and dragging the society behind. That is not going to work, especially without an expedition. So where you're carrying or where you're dragging them to. So I think as it pertains to CPAP and erp, we have had systemic. We create with the intention to create us, to provide a stepping stone, and then we lack when it came to the implementation of what's next and it became permanent. I tell my students one of the greatest flaws in our governance system in Trinidad and Tobago is that we love pilot projects. The problem with it is that pilot projects are supposed to be a testing round to understand the what, the why, the how, and then to know how to fix the gaps in order to create permanence so that we could implement something even better. Our problem in Trinidad and Tobago has consistently been that pilot projects become permanent projects without the testing, the monitoring and the evaluation.
[00:26:52] Speaker A: Let's just to add to that, maybe you can look at this when you are talking to students. Going forward, we as a society tend to always gravitate. I shouldn't say gravitate. We always do the wrong thing, or we want to do the wrong thing, or we engage in the wrong thing first and expect expect government to get on board. I'll give you an example. There are persons that occupy government lands, they squat for years and then they want government to give them a deed of comfort. Then they want government to lease the land to them. After you have illegally acquired this property, you now want it legalized. And, and then you. And then a government will come and give you a promise and a. A political party. Sorry, we'll give you a promise if only vote for me, I legalize that you run and vote for them. And then that said party gets into governance and legalize wrongdoing.
[00:27:39] Speaker B: Well, you know, the thing about it is that that's very true. And I've heard in the past at least one politician saying that, you know, squatting should never be Something that is condoned. But on the flip side, if you know we have members of parliament, we have councillors, we have all the members, chairman and mayors. I am sure they traverse the length and breadth of the electoral districts and their constituencies. If you see one squatter on a Monday of one week and then you come and you see by Friday three more squatters, it should raise an alarm to you to say, okay, whether you have to find a place for them to, by reporting to the Ministry of Local Government or the Ministry of Housing to say, hey, we have a squatting settlement that is beginning to, in its beginning process.
[00:28:28] Speaker A: Yeah, it's in the embryo stages.
[00:28:31] Speaker B: Yeah, it's in the embryonic stage. You need to know, say, hey, hold up, let's go and ask a question so that we will know how to deal with the problem. But then the responsibility is not to turn a blind eye. Go and ask a question and solve the issue very early so that in 15 years you don't have people going for adverse possession. And that's the next thing we of us, we have to remember.
People get advice, people start asking questions. Knowledge is out there, it's available for all levels of society. So once people understand the idea of adverse possession, they feel emboldened.
So all of that is part of the framework. I mean, you name every other thing or activity that the society gets itself involved in that then leads to a problem that the government has to fix is as if we become a welfare state. And I don't like to see the society as, I don't like the idea of social welfare or social development from a ministerial perspective. I like the idea of upliftment and protection because we have the ability to uplift people, transition them into these stages of development. We want them and then to protect them from anything that may be impeding on that upliftment. That's my perspective.
[00:29:47] Speaker A: Dr. Shane Mohamed, I want to thank you very much for weighing in on the topic this morning and sharing some insight as it relates to the political fallouts, as it relates to the SOE and these PDOs. I thank you and after September 18th, I look forward to chatting with you again as we see the unfolding development of these remaining detainees released following not being charged and the end to this current soe. I thank you again.
The best insight, constant feedback, accountability. The all new Talk Radio Freedom 106.5.
