Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has ac­cused Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar of us­ing a re­cent­ly an­nounced joint po­lice and mil­i­tary se­cu­ri­ty ini­tia­tive as a means of rein­tro­duc­ing a pre­vi­ous­ly pro­posed se­cu­ri­ty mod­el, while rais­ing con­cerns about fund­ing, im­ple­men­ta­tion and the role of the mil­i­tary.

In a Face­book post, Beck­les de­scribed the Gov­ern­ment's plan to es­tab­lish joint po­lice and Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force posts as a "knee-jerk re­ac­tion" to grow­ing pub­lic con­cern over crime.

She claimed the ini­tia­tive was an at­tempt to "qui­et­ly rein­tro­duce" the Zone of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSO) con­cept, which had been pro­posed by the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress dur­ing its pre­vi­ous term in of­fice but was nev­er im­ple­ment­ed.