Former prime minister Patrick Manning says if the People’s Partnership Government had continued with some of the security initiatives implemented by former national security minister Martin Joseph, citizens “would not be in the current dire straits that we find ourselves in today as it relates to crime and criminality in the nation.” Manning made the statement on Facebook yesterday as he paid tribute to Joseph, who died on Monday. Joseph drowned at Grange Bay, Tobago, while on vacation.
“Martin was an excellent minister of housing,” Manning said. Manning said it was because of Joseph’s success as housing minister that he was given the national security portfolio in 2003. He said Joseph “truly poured out himself during his many years as minister of national security. He understood the policy position taken by the government of which he was a part, and he steadfastly pursued the mandate and programmes assigned to the ministry of national security.”
He said Joseph was an unswerving advocate of the programmes for the positive reinforcement of good values in youths, such as the Military Led Academic Training (Milat) and Military Led Youth Programme of Apprenticeship and Reorientation Training (Mypart), and also of the more direct military interventions such as the Special Anti-Crime Unit of T&T (SAUTT) and the ill-fated Off-shore Patrol Vessels (OPVs).
He understood clearly that there could be no successful substitute for the sound, well-planned strategy that was being implemented methodically and wisely, Manning said, and kidnapping for ransom was reduced to zero under his watch. Manning said Joseph worked hard and paid a tremendous price for his public profile. He served the country and the PNM “brilliantly and his legacy will be fairly recorded in the history of our nation.”
Joseph was also a former public utilities and the environment minister and general secretary of the party. He served as MP for St Ann’s East from 1995 to 2002. He was later appointed government senator until 2010 when the PNM was voted out of office.