In the last seven years, the Special Anti-Crime Unit of Trinidad and Tobago (SAUTT) has been given nearly $1.6 billion to fight crime. Has this organisation given value for all this money? A report in Tuesday's Express, based on information obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, SAUTT said it had received $1,578,825,250 since it was formed in 2003 under the Patrick Manning administration. In its response, the organisation said it was responsible for training 7,527 persons from the various protective agencies; had investigated 132 gang-related murders, of which 28.8 per cent were solved (i.e. 38). The Unit also stated that it took part with the police service in over 552 major operations, and had apprehended 43 people for various crimes. That seems to give a grand total of 81 solved crimes. Even if we add up all these accomplishments, including the training given to 7,000 security personnel, it works out to over $193,000 per initiative. This includes the $284,000,000 in salaries and allowances handed out to SAUTT's employees between 2003 and 2010.

What have the law-abiding citizens of T&T received in return for this extraordinary expenditure on one small entity? A murder rate which, in the period since SAUTT was created by Cabinet note, has risen from just over 200 murders a year to more than 500.

So what is the real purpose of SAUTT, which is still not properly constituted under the laws of Trinidad and Tobago? That this question must be asked seven years after the formation of the unit indicates the extent to which SAUTT has operated as a veritable secret service, beyond reach of any oversight, while consuming vast amounts of public funds. If it was meant to set a higher standard, to make a difference in efficiency through training, or to solve and prevent crime, especially gang crime, the organisation has failed on all counts.

It is now apparent that SAUTT represents a diversion of resources that should properly and transparently, have been put to fight crime in other ways. The fact that a crime-fighting body is itself illegal only adds insult to criminal injury. Gary Griffith, the National Security adviser to Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, this month said that the Government intends to reduce the number of foreigners at SAUTT, who have been raking in more than $100,000 a month and costing taxpayers over $100 million annually.  

The Government should go even further. Now that the personnel shortage in the police is being taken seriously, to the extent of deputising private security officers, SAUTT should be legally absorbed within the Police Service administration as an elite arm, thus strengthening capacities and, as importantly, bringing to a close this body's counter-productive, shadowy and illegitimate existence.