Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

The To­ba­go cham­ber has of­fered to pro­vide re­sources to the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice to fix po­lice ve­hi­cles as part of its con­tri­bu­tion in the on­go­ing ef­forts to curb crime and crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty on the is­land.

There are cur­rent­ly 47 ve­hi­cles in need of re­pair in To­ba­go. Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Kei­th Scot­land re­vealed that the To­ba­go Di­vi­sion of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce has pledged to do all in its pow­er to as­sist the TTPS. This comes af­ter a meet­ing with Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher and Scot­land yes­ter­day af­ter­noon.

Af­ter the meet­ing, Scot­land told the me­dia, “I want to thank the cham­ber; they have part­nered with the min­istry in terms of bring­ing phys­i­cal re­sources to as­sist in the re­pairs of ve­hi­cles. That was a main take­away.”

Scot­land told Guardian Me­dia the cham­ber of­fered both fi­nan­cial re­sources and, where pos­si­ble, parts for re­pairs.

Scot­land said the cham­ber will sub­mit a plan on Fri­day on the re­sources it will pro­vide in the crime-fight­ing ef­forts.

Mean­while, Trinidad and To­ba­go Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce To­ba­go Di­vi­sion chair­man Cur­tis Williams is con­fi­dent To­ba­go is in good hands and very soon crime will be un­der con­trol.

Williams briefly said all was in place for the ma­jor shake-up that is to come.

Williams said, “One of the ma­jor con­cerns (raised in the meet­ing) is just our com­mu­ni­cat­ing with the TTPS on the sit­u­a­tion with crime and the es­ca­la­tion of crime on the is­land. From this meet­ing, I as­sure the pub­lic that every­thing is in or­der and To­ba­go is in good hands.

“The ma­jor take­away is that we are see­ing re­sults-ori­ent­ed polic­ing, and that is what we are go­ing to see in the next cou­ple of days in to­day. You will see a lot of re­sults. The re­sults will speak for it­self when you know that was some of the ini­tia­tives that were spo­ken about in this meet­ing.”

The team al­so met with the chair­man of the To­ba­go Busi­ness Cham­ber, Mar­tin George, and the pres­i­dent of the To­ba­go Ho­tel and Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion, Al­pha Lord, yes­ter­day morn­ing in a closed-door meet­ing at the Mr Irvine ho­tel.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Lord said he too ex­pects noth­ing but re­sults at this point. “It was an ex­treme­ly good op­por­tu­ni­ty to in­ter­act with the leader in the fight against crime to un­der­stand what their strate­gic ob­jec­tives are and how they plan on go­ing about achiev­ing it.

“I think the ho­tel and tourism sec­tors are pre­pared to work with the Gov­ern­ment on crime. We will be hold­ing them re­spon­si­ble for do­ing what they say they will do, but we are go­ing to be a sup­port­ive and less com­bat­ive part­ner.

“Both the CoP and min­is­ter give a com­mit­ment that the spike in crime we are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing will not plant per­ma­nent seeds. They are go­ing to work not on­ly in To­ba­go but through­out the coun­try to lim­it this. We are go­ing to hold their hands to the fire. What mat­ters now is re­sults.”

The team ar­rived in To­ba­go on Mon­day and is ex­pect­ed to re­turn to Trinidad to­day. From there, Scot­land is ex­pect­ed to present an as­sess­ment re­port to Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds.

When this hap­pens, heavy po­lice ac­tiv­i­ty will be­gin through­out the is­land.

2 pris­on­ers on the is­land charged un­der the An­ti-Gang Act

Two pris­on­ers in To­ba­go have been charged un­der the An­ti-Gang Act as na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty in­ten­si­fied their crack­down on crime on the is­land.

Theron Agard, al­so known as “H Man”, was charged with be­ing a gang leader and con­spir­a­cy to rob, while Mar­cus Har­vey, known as “Ban­ton”, was charged with be­ing a gang mem­ber and con­spir­a­cy to rob. These charges come as part of a broad­er ef­fort by po­lice to ad­dress the re­cent rise in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty in To­ba­go.

The is­land has record­ed 19 mur­ders thus far for the year, with over 80 per cent of the deaths gang-re­lat­ed.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, two oth­er in­di­vid­u­als were ar­rest­ed in re­lat­ed op­er­a­tions. Justin Ju­nior Melville, al­so known as “Mad Dog”, was charged with pos­ses­sion of cannabis for the pur­pose of traf­fick­ing.

The ar­rest oc­curred on Au­gust 9 at Hart Lane, Gov­ern­ment House Road, Scar­bor­ough. On the fol­low­ing day, Okeen West was charged with pos­ses­sion of 18 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion at the same lo­ca­tion.