De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge has re­ject­ed the Op­po­si­tion’s claim that the Gov­ern­ment’s planned roll­out of 30 joint po­lice-army posts across Trinidad and To­ba­go is an in­tro­duc­tion of the Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSO), in­sist­ing the ini­tia­tive is fo­cused on de­liv­er­ing mea­sur­able re­sults in the fight against crime.

The joint posts are to be es­tab­lished over the next four months as Gov­ern­ment ex­pands its se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures un­der the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency (SoE).

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Sturge dis­missed claims by Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les that the ini­tia­tive was an at­tempt to “qui­et­ly rein­tro­duce” the con­cept.