Shas­tri Boodan

Free­lance Cor­re­spon­dent

The Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber of Com­merce is call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to take steps to re­store pub­lic trust in law en­force­ment, even as the mur­der toll con­tin­ues its trou­bling climb over the record 600 mark.

In a me­dia re­lease, cham­ber pres­i­dent Bal­dath Ma­haraj, not­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Er­la Hare­woood-Christo­pher’s state­ment in which she ex­pressed frus­tra­tion at the record num­ber of mur­ders, said with this year’s mur­der count al­ready ex­ceed­ing the 605 record set in 2022, it is time that some­thing is done now to halt the crim­i­nal el­e­ment.

“Pub­lic trust con­tin­ues to erode, as busi­ness­es and cit­i­zens alike face an un­ten­able sit­u­a­tion where crime sti­fles eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty and threat­ens the very fab­ric of our so­ci­ety,” Ma­haraj said.

Ma­haraj said the cham­ber had com­mend­ed Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Kei­th Scot­land for his ef­forts to en­gage with stake­hold­ers in Ch­agua­nas, par­tic­u­lar­ly his out­reach to the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty and pub­lic. He said Scot­land’s com­mit­ment to ad­dress­ing crime was ev­i­dent but it is now clear that more ur­gent short-term strate­gies are need­ed to ad­dress the crime woes.

“While we un­der­stand that long-term strate­gies take time to yield re­sults, there is an ur­gent need for im­me­di­ate, ac­tion­able steps to re­store pub­lic con­fi­dence. What the coun­try re­quires at this mo­ment is not an abun­dance of pub­lic re­la­tions but lead­er­ship with vi­sion—lead­er­ship that can in­spire hope through clear, mea­sur­able progress.”

Ma­haraj said Ch­agua­nas, as a vi­tal com­mer­cial hub, con­tin­ues to bear the brunt of vi­o­lent and or­gan­ised crime.

“Busi­ness own­ers, em­ploy­ees, and res­i­dents live in fear, and this fear trans­lates in­to re­duced in­vest­ment, slowed eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty, and an over­whelm­ing sense of frus­tra­tion. To ad­dress this, we urge the au­thor­i­ties, in­clud­ing the TTPS, to act de­ci­sive­ly and im­ple­ment mea­sures that can have an im­me­di­ate im­pact,” he said.

“In­creas­ing po­lice vis­i­bil­i­ty through foot and mo­bile pa­trols in high-risk ar­eas such as En­deav­our, Mon­trose, and Long­denville is crit­i­cal. A re­li­able rapid-re­sponse mech­a­nism must al­so be es­tab­lished to en­sure time­ly in­ter­ven­tion when crimes are re­port­ed, as de­lays on­ly em­bold­en crim­i­nal el­e­ments.”

He said de­ci­sive ac­tion against the crim­i­nals was cru­cial to al­le­vi­at­ing the prob­lem.

“Tar­get­ed op­er­a­tions against known crim­i­nal net­works are es­sen­tial to dis­rupt their ac­tiv­i­ties and send a clear mes­sage that crime will not be tol­er­at­ed. The cham­ber is com­mit­ted to work­ing col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly with the TTPS and rel­e­vant min­istries to sup­port ini­tia­tives that pro­vide im­me­di­ate re­lief to the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty and res­i­dents while ad­dress­ing the root caus­es of crime.

“How­ev­er, it is clear that words alone will no longer suf­fice. The time has come for de­ci­sive ac­tion, backed by mea­sur­able out­comes. As we ap­proach 2025, the coun­try de­mands more than promis­es; it re­quires lead­er­ship that de­liv­ers re­al, tan­gi­ble re­sults.”