Raphael John-Lall

raphael.lall@guardian.co.tt

Se­nior of­fi­cials in T&T are com­plic­it in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty which con­tributes to the spread of il­le­gal firearms ac­cord­ing to for­mer act­ing deputy com­mis­sion­er of po­lice Wen­dell Sylvester Williams, who is on pre-re­tire­ment leave.

“There is wide ac­cess to firearms in T&T. We know that ac­cess is not just lim­it­ed in­ter­nal­ly but sourced abroad and then im­port­ed in­to T&T, whether legal­ly or il­le­gal­ly.

“One of the is­sues of firearm yield­ing is the abil­i­ty to con­trol firearms. We know we have a fair amount of un­de­tect­ed move­ment.

“We are aware that there is com­plic­i­ty by of­fi­cials in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty so this as well makes some con­tri­bu­tion. To what ex­tent we are not aware? But we are aware that there is that is­sue of fa­cil­i­ta­tion,” he said.

Williams spoke at a vir­tu­al sem­i­nar on the fac­tors in­flu­enc­ing the mur­der lev­el in T&T on Fri­day night, which was host­ed by the Trade and Eco­nom­ic De­vel­op­ment Unit of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI).

He al­so blamed gangs for much of the vi­o­lence in T&T.

“The ri­val­ry comes through the ex­pan­sion of high grounds as well as the split­ting of gangs, which some­times be­comes very volatile. There is vi­o­lent com­pe­ti­tion. There is al­so less re­straint with re­gard to vi­o­lence. We are all liv­ing the ex­pe­ri­ence every day with re­gard to the reck­less use of firearms.”

To bring down the high rates of vi­o­lence, he rec­om­mend­ed that young peo­ple be giv­en op­por­tu­ni­ties.

“We need to pay at­ten­tion to the youths and look at in­sti­tu­tions that sup­port youths, like cadets. Things that give youths a fresh vi­sion rather than the di­rec­tion of which so many com­mu­ni­ties are go­ing right now.”

Pro­fes­sor of Eco­nom­ics at UWI, Dr Roger Ho­sein, who al­so spoke at the sem­i­nar, made a pro­jec­tion based on his analy­sis that T&T would fin­ish 2022 with a mur­der rate of 623.

“For 2022, the da­ta is telling me we would have 623 mur­ders and 658 for 2023. If the mur­der rate cross­es 600, there is the psy­cho­log­i­cal blow that any­thing goes.

“How will I in­vest or sit in Star­bucks and do my re­search? What will be the qual­i­ty of my re­search if I were a busi­ness own­er?

“If we get the eco­nom­ics right, we have a bet­ter chance of tack­ling this prob­lem. I say to the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance that re­turn­ing the econ­o­my to growth makes him al­so a ju­nior Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty in the sense that be­ing Fi­nance Min­is­ter and re­turn­ing the econ­o­my to growth will help to low­er crime.”

For­mer di­rec­tor of the Na­tion­al Op­er­a­tions Cen­tre Garvin Heer­ah, who was the chair­man of the sem­i­nar, said the strate­gic aim of the sem­i­nar was to for­mu­late a pa­per with rec­om­men­da­tions to present and en­gage the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice in a joint part­ner­ship of­fer­ing so­lu­tions for crime re­duc­tion.

Heer­ah al­so rec­om­mend­ed that the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil man­date the for­ma­tion of an Il­le­gal Arms and Am­mu­ni­tion In­ter­dic­tion Unit with mul­ti-agency in­volve­ment and in­clude Cari­com forces and in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners.