The Government and Opposition must unite to fight crime, says Chaguanas West MP Dinesh Rambally.
However, Rambally accused the leaders on both sides of focusing on trivial matters and “quibbling” while the public was suffering.
Rambally spoke with Guardian Media when the Islamic Fadil Services Trust (IFST) recently celebrated its 40th anniversary at the Felicity Diplomatic Centre, Chaguanas.
“We need the leaders to come together and we need to unite against criminality. I have said this before and I cannot stress the importance of getting political leaders and other leaders on board in fighting crime. You need immediate short term measures to be implemented. I have said one such measure is the greater presence of joint police and army patrols,” the MP said.
He added the time for arguing was over.
“We want to deal with crime, we want our political leaders to come together. Imagine (Prime Minister) Keith Christopher Rowley says that okay, eventually in 2023 he wants to have crime talks, he assigns four ministers or so and says this will be my team, Kamla Persad-Bissessar (the Opposition Leader) on the other hand says she is not meeting with this team because she wants the equivalent number of people go to that meeting, and that is what the leaders are quibbling about.
“The next issue she was quibbling about, she wanted to have Gary Griffith be a member of the team. Keith Rowley says no, I don’t want no Gary Griffith being part of the crime talks, and what came out of that. Rowley is saying no to Gary, then you had Kamla saying yes to Gary and then Kamla herself turned around, later on, just a couple weeks ago and she herself was attacking Gary Griffith as the (former) commissioner of police,” he said.
Rambally said it was time that the people demanded leaders sit down and deal with crime on a unified front.
“We are always at loggerheads as to whether something is working or not. We want to see joint army patrols, army-police patrols at various points ... we are seeing it implemented, we are leaving that there for a while. It wouldn’t be that we are politicising crime anymore, it would tell the criminals we are coming after you and it’s a unified approach,” he said.
Rambally said he also wants to know what came out of the Regional Symposium addressing Crime and Violence as a Public Health Issue that took place from April 17 to 18, 2023.
“What tangible success can we point to arising out of that,” he asked.
Rambally said while prayer is good, the nation needs action.
“We have had a day of prayer, sessions of prayer, we are beyond that now. I am not saying whether it was successful or not, I am always for prayers, but at the same time that is not the answer to crime,” Rambally said.