National Security Minister Martin Joseph has expressed his full confidence in acting Police Commissioner James Philbert despite the fact that there have been close to 300 homicides within the first seven months of this year alone.

According to official police statistics Joseph provided to the media yesterday, there were 297 homicides in this country as of July 15, which shows an increase of 6.83 per cent over the 278 homicides that occurred between January 1 to July 15, last year.

’This Minister of National Security has no difficulty with the way in which the current Commissioner of Police is discharging his responsibilities,’ Joseph said.

He was speaking during yesterday’s post-Cabinet news conference at the Diplomatic Centre, St Ann’s , where he announced that there has been some minor improvement in the homicide detection rate during Philbert’s tenure.

’It’s ticking up a little bit and, notice I say ticking up, because to date the detection rate is about 20 per cent compared to about 16 or 17 per cent for a similar period last year,’ Joseph said.

It was pointed out to Joseph that he had said at a recent post-Cabinet news conference that the commanders of police districts were being held accountable for the homicides in their areas and if they failed to meet certain targets they can be removed from their command and asked if the same standard should not apply to whoever is serving as the Police Commissioner.

’The Police Service Commission is mandated by law now to review the performance of the Commissioner of Police. I am not aware of they having any difficulties with the way in which the current Commissioner of Police is discharging his responsibilities,’ Joseph said.

He said that a review of the ’entire national security architecture’ prepared by retired Canadian major general Cameron Ross was submitted to the Cabinet yesterday, after ’it was considered by the National Security Council over a period of three days’.

Prime Minister Patrick Manning heads the Cabinet and also heads the NSC. Manning had announced the Ross crime report during the ruling party’s special convention in Chaguaramas on June 21.