In a sting­ing as­sess­ment of the crime sit­u­a­tion in To­ba­go, chair­man of the To­ba­go Cham­ber of Com­merce, Mar­tin George, says while crim­i­nals are “run­ning ram­pant” the po­lice seem “clue­less and help­less.” He warned that the is­land could be “lost” if ac­tion isn’t tak­en soon.

Com­ment­ing on the is­land’s mur­der count, which in­creased to 22 yes­ter­day, George said the po­lice are fo­cus­ing on the wrong things.

“If this is the best ef­fort of the TTPS, then they are clear­ly fail­ing in their job. They are fail­ing in the job of mak­ing the na­tion safe and se­cure,” he said.

“One does not feel any sense of com­fort, safe­ty, or se­cu­ri­ty. The crim­i­nals ap­pear to be run­ning ram­pant, cre­at­ing mur­der, may­hem, and mad­ness, while the po­lice seem clue­less and help­less.

“Po­lice seem fo­cused on the wrong things … It’s no sur­prise the crim­i­nals are hav­ing a hey­day. They are laugh­ing at us, laugh­ing at the na­tion.”

George, who urged the po­lice to be re­al­is­tic about the sit­u­a­tion, added: “To­ba­go is the small­est di­vi­sion in the TTPS, yet they can­not make it safe? Are we go­ing to say To­ba­go is lost al­so?

“Do we feel pro­tect­ed as or­di­nary cit­i­zens? Do we feel served? Is enough be­ing done by the TTPS to car­ry out their role and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty?”

Mean­while, Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots leader Wat­son Duke called on Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine to es­tab­lish the home­land se­cu­ri­ty de­part­ment he rec­om­mend­ed months ago and even of­fered to help set it up for free. How­ev­er, he warned that if Au­gus­tine has no plans to tack­le the crime sit­u­a­tion, he should just call an elec­tion.

“I can help you set up the de­part­ment for free. I don’t want no mon­ey. Oth­er­wise, you’re wast­ing time and you’re a bag of hot air wast­ing time,” Duke said in a Face­book post.