Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Mar­vin Gon­za­les has chal­lenged for­mer se­nior po­lice of­fi­cer Roger Alexan­der's claims that crime-fight­ing re­sources and equip­ment are in short sup­ply to var­i­ous arms of the pro­tec­tive ser­vices.

Gon­za­les made the com­ment dur­ing the first episode of CNC3’s Agen­da 41 pro­gramme yes­ter­day, say­ing he wit­nessed first­hand the tech­no­log­i­cal ca­pa­bil­i­ties of this coun­try’s na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus. He chid­ed Alexan­der for sug­gest­ing law en­force­ment agen­cies were ill-pre­pared.

Alexan­der, who is the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ (UNC) Gen­er­al Elec­tion can­di­date for Tu­na­puna, lament­ed what he de­scribed as the State’s short­falls in crime-fight­ing dur­ing a po­lit­i­cal meet­ing last week. Alexan­der claimed there were short­ages in body ar­mour, Coast Guard ves­sels, fire ten­ders and in­ef­fec­tive man­age­ment prac­tices hin­der­ing se­cu­ri­ty op­er­a­tions na­tion­wide.