Antigua and Barbuda’s national security ecosystem has openly admitted critical flaws in cross-agency intelligence sharing among domestic law enforcement groups, as the island nation’s government moves to ramp up its overall capabilities to combat growing criminal activity.
The breakdown in coordinated information flows was first flagged during high-level talks between members of the national Cabinet and senior security sector officials, according to Maurice Merchant, the country’s Director General of Communications. Merchant shared details of the findings during an official press briefing held Thursday immediately after the Cabinet’s closed-door discussions.
“One of the key shortcomings that was identified and thoroughly debated during the talks was the lack of streamlined information sharing across different units of the country’s security forces,” Merchant told reporters.
He went on to explain the practical harms of this fragmented approach: one security agency often holds critical, actionable intelligence related to criminal activity, but lacks the jurisdictional authority, operational capacity, or manpower to act on that information on its own. If that intelligence were shared promptly and effectively with another relevant branch of the national security apparatus, it could lead to successful law enforcement operations and disrupt criminal networks.
“They may hold key intelligence that could stop a major crime, but simply do not have the on-the-ground capacity to act on that information themselves,” Merchant elaborated. “If they can share that intelligence seamlessly with other branches that do have that capacity, it would translate into meaningful, positive progress in reducing crime across the country.”
Merchant was careful to note that limited, informal cooperation and information sharing is already standard practice between the country’s security agencies, but emphasized that systemic reforms are needed to deliver substantial improvements to the current framework. “Information sharing is already happening to some degree, but there is a clear and urgent need for far greater coordination and improvement across the board,” he said.
Following the identification of this gap, all involved national security agencies have reportedly pledged to implement new structured measures that embed regular, centralized intelligence sharing as a core component of the country’s national anti-crime strategy.
The announcement of the intelligence-sharing gap came as part of a broader policy discussion that covered a range of pressing national security issues, including the proliferation of illegal firearms, strengthening national border surveillance protocols, and ongoing questions around potential restructuring of the country’s Office of National Drug and Money Laundering Control Policy (ONDCP).
On the topic of ONDCP, Merchant confirmed that the national Cabinet has not held any new formal discussions about dissolving the agency. Ongoing negotiations between government representatives, ONDCP employees and their labor unions are still in progress, and the vast majority of the office’s staff have now returned to their regular duties after being instructed to resume work, following a period of industrial action or uncertainty about the agency’s future.