Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar agrees with the T&T Cham­ber’s call for bi­par­ti­san crime talks and is open to con­ver­sa­tions if the Con­fed­er­a­tion of Re­gion­al Busi­ness Cham­bers state the ex­act parts of the Con­sti­tu­tion which they want re­formed.

“How­ev­er there are many strate­gies and ideas that can be im­ple­ment­ed with­in the cur­rent sys­tem. Crime needs to be ad­dressed with a mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary ap­proach and that can be achieved with­in the frame­work of the cur­rent Con­sti­tu­tion,” she said yes­ter­day.

Fol­low­ing Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s state­ments on na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty on Tues­day, the T&T Cham­ber called for the bi­par­ti­san di­a­logue on crime and the Con­fed­er­a­tion said if con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form is need­ed to im­prove the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS), it should be done posthaste.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said: “I agree with them. I have made it quite clear that I will lead my team. I sug­gest they con­sid­er writ­ing to the Prime Min­is­ter and ask­ing him to at­tend. Fur­ther I think they should al­so at­tend the talks as they may have some ideas that can be im­ple­ment­ed.”

She added that her team for any an­ti-crime talks with Gov­ern­ment would be par­lia­men­tar­i­ans but gave no names.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said when the UNC met with the Joint Cham­bers and pre­sent­ed some of its an­ti crime plans the cham­bers in­di­cat­ed they were in­volved in a con­sul­ta­tive process with mem­bers and oth­er stake­hold­ers to de­vel­op pro­pos­als for ad­dress­ing the crime sit­u­a­tion.

“Fol­low­ing the meet­ing, the Joint Cham­bers com­mit­ted to shar­ing de­tails of their rec­om­men­da­tions once they’ve com­plet­ed their con­sul­ta­tive process. To date the Joint Cham­bers haven’t pro­vid­ed those pro­pos­als to us,” she said

The Amer­i­can Cham­ber of Com­merce in­de­pen­dent­ly sent the UNC very de­tailed pro­pos­als.

“Pub­licly I heard that the cham­ber spoke of a 100 per cent tax break for do­na­tions to the po­lice and Crime Stop­pers. In my view there’s enough mon­ey al­lo­cat­ed to Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty in the bud­get an­nu­al­ly to fund its op­er­a­tions,” she said.

“These busi­ness­es al­ready pay too high tax­es and are strug­gling with in­fla­tion and in­creased ex­pens­es. I be­lieve they should not have to make do­na­tions to fund TTPS op­er­a­tions be­cause they’re al­ready pay­ing tax­es to fund. That’s very un­fair to them. They should keep their mon­ey to in­vest and grow their busi­ness­es to cre­ate em­ploy­ment.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the UNC al­so met the Con­fed­er­a­tion of Cham­bers last year and pre­sent­ed some of its plans.

“To date they as a group al­so haven’t pre­sent­ed any pro­pos­als to us. How­ev­er, in­de­pen­dent­ly the Tu­na­puna Cham­ber through Ra­mon Gre­go­rio and the To­ba­go Cham­ber through Mar­tin George have pro­vid­ed pro­pos­als.

“If the Con­fed­er­a­tion states ex­act­ly and ex­plic­it­ly the parts of the Con­sti­tu­tion that they want re­formed, we can have a con­ver­sa­tion on that. They need to pro­vide specifics which I would be open to look at and work with them.”

The Op­po­si­tion Leader added: “These cham­ber groups are filled with good hard­work­ing peo­ple. I’m com­mit­ted to work­ing with any of them to en­sure that their busi­ness­es and fam­i­lies are se­cured.”

Cud­joe for UNC crime talks

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the UNC’s third an­ti-crime con­sul­ta­tion on Feb­ru­ary 19 will be in Ch­agua­nas and Pro­fes­sor Sel­wyn Cud­joe is sched­uled to present.

“I urge the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty to send rep­re­sen­ta­tives as this is a fo­rum where in­de­pen­dent views can be ex­pressed. All are in­vit­ed to come and share their thoughts, sto­ries, ideas and so­lu­tions,” she said.

UNC deputy leader Jear­lean John said the par­ty has been very clear, fo­cused and stead­fast with its in­ten­tions to do every­thing to en­sure that cit­i­zens’ safe­ty is re­stored.

“We’ve moved to pub­lic en­gage­ment in which all stake­hold­ers each have an op­por­tu­ni­ty to make their case,” she said.

“The gov­ern­ment to date hasn’t shown any will­ing­ness to en­gage or fa­cil­i­tate wider di­a­logue with cit­i­zens. How­ev­er we’ve gone so faras to in­vite all of the busi­ness cham­bers, trade unions, heads of re­li­gion and mem­bers of the wider com­mu­ni­ty to par­tic­i­pate in our an­ti crime con­sul­ta­tions.

“ o date our in­vi­ta­tion hasn’t been ac­cept­ed by any of our busi­ness lead­ers. Crime af­fects every­one, so they should give ur­gent re­flec­tion to their un­will­ing­ness to par­tic­i­pate in re­sponse to such a pub­lic dis­or­der.”