Rhon­da Krys­tal Ram­bal­ly

Chair­man of the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Franklin Khan says Gov­ern­ment has fi­nal­ly recog­nised the grav­i­ty of the crime sit­u­a­tion in the coun­try.He said a state of emer­gency was the ul­ti­mate step in fight­ing crime and the PNM was wait­ing "anx­ious­ly" to see whether it would have a pos­i­tive im­pact on the crime sit­u­a­tion. Khan said the de­ci­sion to en­force a lim­it­ed state of emer­gency was done "ob­vi­ous­ly" be­cause of a writ­ten state­ment by Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley on Sat­ur­day who ex­pressed will­ing­ness to hold dis­cus­sions with Gov­ern­ment on the crime sit­u­a­tion.

How­ev­er, he said, the par­ty was dis­ap­point­ed Gov­ern­ment had not con­sult­ed with Row­ley on the de­ci­sion to im­ple­ment the emer­gency. On Sun­day, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced the in­sti­tu­tion of a lim­it­ed state of emer­gency from mid­night in sev­er­al ar­eas deemed as crime hot spots. Khan said: "The PNM is dis­ap­point­ed that on such a se­ri­ous na­tion­al is­sue the Prime Min­is­ter did not see it fit to con­sult the Op­po­si­tion leader be­fore the de­ci­sion was tak­en. "It is pass­ing strange that the state of emer­gency was called af­ter the Op­po­si­tion leader in­di­cat­ed the grav­i­ty of the sit­u­a­tion in the press re­lease and he called for di­a­logue be­tween the Op­po­si­tion and the Gov­ern­ment."

Khan was speak­ing at a news con­fer­ence at Bal­isi­er House, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day. He said the PNM was will­ing to as­sist in any way pos­si­ble to bring the crime surge un­der con­trol. He said crime should not be treat­ed as a po­lit­i­cal mat­ter. Khan said the PNM's po­si­tion was if Gov­ern­ment can­not deal with the sit­u­a­tion then "pack your bags and walk." Khan said the de­ci­sion for a state of emer­gency "was not well thought through" since a Sun­day news re­port said deputy po­lit­i­cal leader of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress Dr Roodal Mooni­lal said there was no need for a state of emer­gency. "So ul­ti­mate­ly, even though there is a state of emer­gency, it wasn't a long dis­course and dis­cus­sion that was well thought through.

"Some­thing hap­pened be­tween Sat­ur­day and Sun­day to cause this sit­u­a­tion to arise and it is ob­vi­ous­ly Dr Row­ley's let­ter be­cause Dr Row­ley did in fact in­di­cate that this thing is get­ting too far," Khan said.

He said since Gov­ern­ment as­sumed of­fice it dis­man­tled the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus, in­clud­ing the can­cel­la­tion of the off­shore pa­trol ves­sels con­tract; dis­band­ing the Spe­cial An­ti-Crime Unit of T&T and sell­ing the air­ship. He said Gov­ern­ment was yet to state its com­pre­hen­sive crime plan.

He added: "Whether or not there were cer­tain weak­ness­es in these in­sti­tu­tions or ap­pa­ra­tus were they dis­man­tled sole­ly for po­lit­i­cal rea­sons. "The Gov­ern­ment has left a ma­jor vac­u­um in the crime pre­ven­tion mech­a­nism and this is what we are pay­ing the price for to­day," Khan said. PNM vice chair­man Camille Robin­son-Reg­is said Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards should have agreed with a state of emer­gency be­fore the Prime Min­is­ter made the an­nounce­ment on Sun­day. She said it was un­for­tu­nate.