ELIZ­A­BETH GON­ZA­LES

Free­lance Cor­re­spon­dent

Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine says the de­c­la­ra­tion of a State of Emer­gency in T&T rais­es more ques­tions than an­swers, par­tic­u­lar­ly re­gard­ing its ef­fec­tive­ness and the Gov­ern­ment’s ap­proach to the crime cri­sis.

Speak­ing at a vir­tu­al brief­ing yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, Au­gus­tine crit­i­cised the press brief­ing held by Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds and Min­is­ter Stu­art Young, call­ing it “unim­pres­sive” and an “ad­mis­sion of fail­ure.”

“It was quite unim­pres­sive. They did not ex­ude any con­fi­dence or com­mand over the sit­u­a­tion. And what we saw es­sen­tial­ly is an ad­mis­sion of fail­ure.”

Au­gus­tine said he’ll say more on the mat­ter in the com­ing days but hoped law en­force­ment of­fi­cials do not abuse the pow­er that comes with the SoE.

Mean­while, the To­ba­go Ho­tel and Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion is re­lieved that the State of Emer­gency does not in­clude a cur­few, as hun­dreds of vis­i­tors are ex­pect­ed to ar­rive on the is­land in the next 24 hours to cel­e­brate the New Year. How­ev­er, its pres­i­dent, Al­pha Lorde was con­cerned that the move may have come too late to make a re­al dif­fer­ence.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Lorde warned that with­out long-term so­lu­tions, the crime prob­lem will re­turn.

While the lack of a cur­few has pre­vent­ed im­me­di­ate can­cel­la­tions from vis­i­tors, he feared the un­cer­tain­ty sur­round­ing the State of Emer­gency could af­fect tourism in the com­ing weeks.

Lorde added that the Gov­ern­ment’s ac­tions feel more like a one-hit won­der.

“But the bot­tom line is, the re­sults are not there. Be­yond the State of Emer­gency, I would like to see 2025, han­dled with a bit of dili­gence by the se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus, and not look for one-hit won­ders. You know, some se­ri­ous dili­gence. And if at the end of 2025, we’re hav­ing this con­ver­sa­tion, and we’ve had a 20 to 25 per cent re­duc­tion in vi­o­lent crimes, a 50 per cent re­duc­tion in homi­cides, then I would say, okay, yeah, some­thing has been done.”

He urged the Gov­ern­ment to fo­cus on long-term crime so­lu­tions.

And chair­man of the To­ba­go Di­vi­sion of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce Cur­tis Williams told Guardian Me­dia his mem­bers are re­lieved and hap­py this move has been made.

“How­ev­er, some of our mem­bers were con­cerned as to the SoEs in the past and the ef­fects it had on busi­ness­es. Yes, there may be slow­ing down be­cause there would be some stop and search­es and road­blocks. We do ex­pect a fall­out but what we can see is this SoE is tar­get­ing the crim­i­nals. So, I don’t think law-abid­ing cit­i­zens like our mem­bers should be too con­cerned.”