Government is set to allocate $100 million for a crime-fighting initiative aimed at impoverished communities.
Members of the T&T Defence Force (TTDF) will spearhead the drive in the communities, where it is hoped the youth will be guided away from the criminal elements.
The imitative was announced by Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley during a People’s National Movement meeting in San Juan last night.
The Prime Minister said the Government will do what it must to address crime in the country, including special initiatives in some communities he described as “nurseries for criminal conduct.”
He said the money will be made available to the TTDF to hire reserve and retired officers, as well as recruits, to go into communities to fight criminal elements.
Rowley said, “In those communities that you will see named in the very near future, I will instruct the Minister of Finance (Colm Minister) to identify immediately $100 million to go inside those communities and do what is not being done.
“Because criminals in there have taken control of those streets and those houses and are making it difficult for government services to go in there and give some people an opportunity for a decent life.
“The money that I’m describing here will be made available to the Defence Force leadership to retain and to hire reserve officers or retired officers and recruits to go into those communities and ensure that what has to be built is built, where security has to be on the street is there, and where people can rely on them and not on the local don who believes that they somehow bigger than the Government and the people of Trinidad and Tobago.”
Admitting that Trinidad and Tobago has huge a crime problem, the Prime Minister said it was the Government’s job to ensure that security service personnel are well resourced, well-behaved and follow policies that align with the laws of the land.
He said in the past, similar initiatives of affirmative action to treat with young black men in urban areas who had begun to drift away in criminality were developed, but had not seen the light of day due to the push of the Opposition.
But unlike the past, he assured that this intervention will be fulfilled.