AM­CHAM T&T has said that it is pleased that the Gov­ern­ment is tak­ing ad­di­tion­al steps to com­bat out-of-con­trol crime in T&T.

"The fact that more peo­ple have been mur­dered in 2024 than in any oth­er year, clear­ly means that ad­di­tion­al mea­sures need to be im­ple­ment­ed as the cur­rent ap­proach­es are not work­ing. We al­so rec­og­nize that the Gov­ern­ment is del­i­cate­ly seek­ing to bal­ance these ad­di­tion­al mea­sures with the preser­va­tion of eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty," AM­CHAM T&T said in a me­dia state­ment to­day.

How­ev­er, AM­CHAM T&T said it will al­so be con­cerned about any mea­sures that cur­tail civ­il lib­er­ties.

"As such, while we are sup­port­ive of the SoE in the man­ner it has been an­nounced, at this time, we await both the reg­u­la­tions with ap­pro­pri­ate safe­guards against the po­ten­tial ar­bi­trary abuse of pow­er by in­di­vid­ual mem­bers of the pro­tec­tive ser­vices."

AM­CHAM T&T added that it looks for­ward to the es­tab­lish­ment of the Spe­cial Tri­bunal to en­sure the preser­va­tion of the rule of law and in­di­vid­ual rights in this pe­ri­od.

"We ea­ger­ly an­tic­i­pate re­sults from the State of Emer­gency and urge the Gov­ern­ment and pro­tec­tive ser­vices to use the op­por­tu­ni­ty to sig­nif­i­cant­ly and mean­ing­ful­ly dis­rupt gangs and gang lead­er­ship through all law­ful means."

It added, "Mov­ing for­ward, our view is that crime sup­pres­sion mea­sures alone will not solve the prob­lem there­fore, we re­it­er­ate our call for greater col­lab­o­ra­tion around medi­um-to-long-term an­ti-crime mea­sures. As al­ways, we look for­ward to work­ing with all our elect­ed of­fi­cials to bring more safe­ty and pros­per­i­ty to our coun­try and our cit­i­zens."