Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has re­spond­ed to ques­tions from Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les about the in­stal­la­tion of a new radar sys­tem in To­ba­go, ac­cus­ing the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) of at­tempt­ing to com­pro­mise na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

In a state­ment to­day, the Prime Min­is­ter said vi­o­lent crime over the past decade was dri­ven by the lo­cal drug mafia and “sanc­tion-bust­ing Venezue­lan crim­i­nal col­lab­o­ra­tors”. She said the new radar sys­tem as­sists with the de­tec­tion of il­le­gal Venezue­lan crude oil trans­fers and traf­fick­ers bring­ing nar­cotics, firearms, am­mu­ni­tion and mi­grants in­to Trinidad and To­ba­go, adding that the equip­ment pro­vides a su­pe­ri­or lay­er of pro­tec­tion that was pre­vi­ous­ly un­avail­able.

In her re­sponse, the Prime Min­is­ter called on the Op­po­si­tion to pub­licly dis­close key in­for­ma­tion, first ask­ing it to, “Dis­close to the cit­i­zens how long the PNM has known that the pre­vi­ous radar sys­tem has been com­pro­mised.”