INSTEAD of attacking government for asking the United States for a temporary radar system to improve national security, the Prime Minister is challenging the Opposition People's National Movement (PNM) to explain to the country, just how long did it know Trinidad and Tobago's radar system had been compromised.

In a press release on the evening of December 3, Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar claimed the "horrendous" murder and violent crime rates of the past decade – when the PNM was in government – were mainly driven by the local drug mafia and sanction-busting Venezuelan criminal collaborators.

She added that the PNM hierarchy appeared unable to extricate that party from the clutches of both criminal groups. Persad-Bissessar said the new radar system, at the ANR Robinson International Airport in Tobago, assists with detection of crude oil sanction-busting activities and traffickers conducting deliveries of illegal narcotics, firearms, ammunition and migrants into TT from Venezuela.