GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

Some of this coun­try’s lead­ing busi­ness cham­bers have wel­comed the call by Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo for par­lia­men­tar­i­ans to work to­geth­er to tack­le T&T’s crime scourge.

How­ev­er, at the same time they said Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher needs to make her­self avail­able to hold dis­cus­sions with the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty as they ex­pressed con­cerns that ef­forts to meet with the top cop have been fu­tile.

Kan­ga­loo, who de­liv­ered her maid­en ad­dress at the open­ing of the Fourth Ses­sion of the 12th Par­lia­ment, said, “The ur­gency is ob­vi­ous. The pain and the suf­fer­ing are un­bear­able. These alone should dri­ve par­lia­men­tar­i­ans to put aside their par­ty ri­val­ries, join hands across the aisle, and col­lab­o­rate on how to stem crime and crim­i­nal con­duct.”

In re­sponse to the pres­i­dent’s com­ments Chris­t­ian Ram­per­sad, Pres­i­dent of the Ari­ma Busi­ness As­so­ci­a­tion told Guardian Me­dia that the call by Kan­ga­loo was a step in the right di­rec­tion.

Whether the Op­po­si­tion Leader and the Prime Min­is­ter can col­lab­o­rate is “left to be seen,” Ram­per­sad added.

“The Gov­ern­ment and al­so the Op­po­si­tion are re­spon­si­ble for the cit­i­zen­ry and to help solve crime. If the Gov­ern­ment is bring­ing leg­is­la­tion that the Op­po­si­tion has ob­jec­tions to, I be­lieve in the Op­po­si­tion’s purview their du­ty is not just to op­pose but to give rec­om­men­da­tions on what they think is miss­ing. The Op­po­si­tion has a fidu­cia­ry du­ty and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to the pub­lic to Trinidad and To­ba­go. They are paid a salary to be the Op­po­si­tion but not just to op­pose but to con­struc­tive­ly op­pose,” Ram­per­sad said.

He added that “col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween Gov­ern­ment and the Op­po­si­tion has not hap­pened for ages.”

Ram­per­sad al­so re­it­er­at­ed his call for the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er to en­gage the busi­ness cham­bers to help chart the way for­ward re­gard­ing crime fight­ing mea­sures and oth­er per­ti­nent is­sues.

“The Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er is hands off to any one. We as the col­lec­tive cham­bers have been try­ing to get a meet­ing with her ... She does not take our calls. We are placed on a wait­ing list some­times and no an­swer comes through,” Ram­per­sad added.

Ki­ran Singh, Pres­i­dent of Greater San Fer­nan­do Area Cham­ber of Com­merce (GS­FCC) al­so agreed that greater col­lab­o­ra­tion was need­ed to com­bat crime.

“If all par­lia­men­tar­i­ans work to­geth­er to find so­lu­tions to crime it would be for the bet­ter­ment of the en­tire so­ci­ety, not just by con­stituen­cy ar­eas.

“We have sev­er­al hotspots which would fall in dif­fer­ent elec­toral dis­tricts and crime has af­fect­ed every sin­gle per­son through­out the coun­try ... the Po­lice Ser­vice has made cer­tain an­nounce­ments which have not borne suf­fi­cient fruit,” Singh said.

He said if Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans “set the ex­am­ple and lead at the fore­front” then oth­er arms would al­so have to fol­low suit re­sult­ing in a holis­tic ap­proach to fight crime.

“We be­lieve that bail should be a lit­tle more re­stric­tive for cer­tain crimes and the on­ly way that could be is en­act­ed through Par­lia­ment where cer­tain laws would have to be re­vis­it­ed with­out be­ing im­pact­ing on per­sons’ rights but we al­so have to re­mem­ber the vic­tims have cer­tain rights and those rights are not be­ing ad­dressed,” Singh added.

Head of the Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce (CCIC), Bal­dath Ma­haraj said his cham­ber al­so wel­comed any joint ef­forts by the Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion to re­duce crime.

How­ev­er, he not­ed that there have been sim­i­lar calls over the years which have been fu­tile.

“Let it not con­tin­ue to be a talk shop whilst the busi­ness­men and oth­er cit­i­zens have to live in fear,” Ma­haraj added.