Security matters top discussions with National Security Minister, Security Officials and Premier of Nevis

(L-R) Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of National Security and Immigration Mrs Estonia Browne, Federal Minister of National Security and Immigration Hon. Terrence Sam Condor, Special Advisor in the Ministry Dr. Norgen Wilson, Premier of Nevis Hon, Joseph Parry and Permanent Secretary in the Premier’s Ministry Ms. Angelica Elliott

NEVIS (February 19, 2010) — Premier of Nevis Hon Joseph Parry and Security officials on Nevis had the opportunity to discuss a number of security matters, when new Minister of National Security in St. Kitts and Nevis Hon. Terrance Sam Condor held a number of one-on-one meetings in Nevis on Tuesday.

Mr. Condor, who is also the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Immigration, was accompanied by Special Advisor in the Ministry of National Security Dr. Norgen Wilson and Permanent Secretary Mrs. Estonia Browne.

In an interview with the Department of Information, Mr. Condor pointed to a number of areas discussed with the Police, Fire and Rescue Service and Prison officers citing that the meetings went well with frank and open discussion and the new approach was vital.

“We want to make a difference. We want things to change. The crime and violence and problems with national security is the major issue in the country now. I want to do things differently now because we can’t get a different result by doing things the same way and I think the officers all understand that.

“The last meeting I had with the Premier he has spoken about some matters and taking it forward, we have to now go back to the drawing board and look to see how we could take national security to a higher level where we could address these issues,” he said.

The National Security Minister made specific reference to the Police Regulations which he said the Police Officers expressed dissatisfaction with because their needs were not meet.

The Minister referred to one officer’s strong disregard for the Regulations who recommended that the existing document that had been put together in the past with input from police officers should be burnt.

“We want to have more meetings in fact we thought we had a good thing with the police regulations [but] it means going back to the drawing board.

“We want to start from ground level right up… They (the Police) are really disowning it (Police Regulations) now. So the strategy has to be different in how we deal with them. So that is how we intend to start differently in terms of interaction with them and so on,” he said.

The Minister said he would seek to get a draft of the proposed new regulations from the Police in an effort to have a new set of regulations drawn up.

There was also the issue of police recruitment which Mr. Condor said was a matter that had already been receiving attention since he had taken office two weeks ago.

“We have a strategy that was discussed in St. Kitts just last week Friday about how we could make the Force more attractive to local people, our recruitment process.

“That is something that came from the officers themselves and so that is something we are going to look at the recruitment process, how we promote the Force, how we make it more attractive basically to local people. So we are going to be working on that,” he said.

However, the Minister hastened to thank Officers that had been recruited from areas outside of St. Kitts and Nevis at a time when there was little interest from locals to join the Police Force.

“We want to thank and to pay tribute to our officers who come from abroad we don’t want to be ungrateful. Ungratefulness is worse than witchcraft. So we want to pay tribute to them.

“In fact in the past when I was growing up there was a regional Leeward Island Police Force and so overseas officers are nothing new to St. Kitts and Nevis but in recent times we have had to depend [on them] because we were not getting our local people,” he said.

Responding to an unrelated matter of immigration, Mr. Condor who also holds that portfolio said the matter was one he discussed with Premier Parry.

“The Premier and I just discussed immigration issues and it needs to be organized, controlled, systemized and so we are going to be looking at that.

“We don’t want to have our countries overrun by people from all over. It must be orderly and organised and so we are going to be looking at immigration. In fact that was the final matter that we just discussed,” he said.