SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior Re­porter

shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

Gov­ern­ment and the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) came un­der heavy fire from the pub­lic and crit­i­cal thinkers for the coun­try’s spi­ralling crime at a de­bate host­ed by the British Broad­cast­ing Cor­po­ra­tion (BBC) on Wednes­day.

The ses­sion fea­tured politi­cians and opin­ion mak­ers, in­clud­ing En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young, Tabaquite MP Ani­ta Haynes, CEO of the He­roes Foun­da­tion Lawrence Ar­joon and econ­o­mist Dr Mar­lene Attzs, who re­spond­ed to ques­tions from the pub­lic on top­i­cal is­sues.

The ses­sion, BBC World Ques­tion, was host­ed by BBC’s Jon­ny Dy­mond at Cen­tral Bank Au­di­to­ri­um, Er­ic Williams Plaza .

Dy­mond in­tro­duced T&T as the most pros­per­ous coun­try in the Caribbean with a sta­ble democ­ra­cy, rich cul­ture, val­ued nat­ur­al re­sources and grow­ing tourist in­dus­try.

“But it faces big chal­lenges,” he said, list­ing crime, the trade in drugs and hu­mans and the grow­ing gang cul­ture as some of the chal­lenges.

Dy­mond said T&T was ranked sixth by the World of Sta­tis­tics for be­ing “the most crim­i­nal coun­try” in the world and record­ed its high­est mur­der rate last year.

Turn­ing to the au­di­ence, Dy­mond in­vit­ed Rishi Ma­habir to ask the pan­el a ques­tion. In a faint voice, Ma­habir said his fa­ther, a farmer, was plagued by crime un­til he was mur­dered two months ago. He said a homi­cide of­fi­cer was nev­er as­signed to the case. He asked the pan­el why past and present gov­ern­ments and the TTPS failed to ad­dress crime.

Dy­mond point­ed out that last year Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley had de­clared vi­o­lence a pub­lic health emer­gency, not­ing that the BBC had re­ceived dozens of ques­tions on crime be­fore the de­bate kicked off.

Sym­pa­this­ing with Ma­habir’s trag­ic loss, Young said: “Crime is an is­sue that af­fects every­one, un­for­tu­nate­ly.

He added: “The re­spon­si­bil­i­ty falls to who­ev­er is the Gov­ern­ment in pow­er,” Young ad­mit­ted.

Not­ing T&T’s ge­o­graph­ic prox­im­i­ty to South Amer­i­ca, Young said the coun­try faces a lot of transna­tion­al crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty.

“I can as­sure you we are putting a lot of re­sources be­hind it. Are we where we need to be? Ab­solute­ly not,” he said.

Young said as a cit­i­zen he is very con­cerned and he as­sured Ma­habir that Gov­ern­ment has been work­ing with the TTPS and oth­er arms of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

“Crime is some­thing that is af­fect­ing every­where in the world . . . but none of us wants to hear that. What are we do­ing about deal­ing with it right here in Trinidad and To­ba­go? We are try­ing to em­ploy as much tech­nol­o­gy as pos­si­ble, we are try­ing to boost the morale of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice. It is some­thing that is a top pri­or­i­ty for the Gov­ern­ment.”

Young said the Gov­ern­ment is try­ing its best to pro­vide law en­force­ment with what they need. He told Ma­habir he would make in­quiries as to why no of­fi­cer has been in­ves­ti­gat­ing his fa­ther’s mur­der, stat­ing that was “un­ac­cept­able.”

In re­sponse to Young’s com­ments, Haynes said as a cit­i­zen it had been dif­fi­cult in the last few years to be look­ing on at the es­ca­lat­ing crime wave. She said Gov­ern­ment has been putting re­sources in­to our prob­lem with­out mea­sur­ing its ef­fi­cien­cy.

“We are al­ready afraid. But what we aren’t hear­ing is that with the $5 bil­lion put to­wards na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, or all of the in­ter­ven­tions that are be­ing pro­posed, we nev­er hear at the end of the year or the end of a stip­u­lat­ed pe­ri­od any ac­knowl­edge­ment of what worked, what did not work or what could work bet­ter if we need cer­tain im­prove­ments,” she said.

Haynes said de­spite in­ject­ing bil­lions of dol­lars in­to na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty year af­ter year, noth­ing has worked.

“So we must have a pro­gres­sive dis­cus­sion and be fo­cused on tar­get­ed in­ter­ven­tions,” she said

Attzs ex­pressed con­cern that the TTPS was seen as a panacea.

“I think that is not a healthy ap­proach. The T&T Po­lice Ser­vice is an in­sti­tu­tion and un­less we look at whether or not that in­sti­tu­tion is ap­pro­pri­ate­ly re­sourced, I mean both in terms of their hu­man re­sources and fi­nan­cial re­sources etc., then they will re­al­ly not be equipped to ad­dress the kinds of chal­lenges that we are see­ing in Trinidad and To­ba­go,” she said.

Attzs added: “It is very ap­par­ent that the na­ture of crime has changed and there­fore your in­sti­tu­tion­al frame­work has to be one that adapts to suit that chang­ing dy­nam­ic. And it is not sim­ply a ques­tion about a bud­getary al­lo­ca­tion” Attzs said, but a re­turn on the in­vest­ment and the lev­els of ef­fi­cien­cy de­liv­ered.

Ar­joon said hon­esty, trust and mean­ing­ful col­lab­o­ra­tion are crit­i­cal to build­ing a safe and sus­tain­able so­ci­ety.

“We do not have a so­ci­ety that trusts. And that is me be­ing hon­est. And it starts from our lead­er­ship come straight down,” he said

Dy­mond asked Ma­habit to share his thoughts as to why gov­ern­ments and the po­lice have failed to tack­le crime.

“I think it has a lot to do with cor­rup­tion in the Po­lice Ser­vice,” he said.