KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

While Gov­ern­ment takes pride in re­duc­ing un­em­ploy­ment to 3.7 per cent, Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Jear­lean John says T&T’s course to­wards an­oth­er record­ing-break­ing year of mur­ders should be the sta­tis­tic they fo­cus on.

As the Bud­get de­bate con­tin­ued in the Sen­ate yes­ter­day, John re­called that T&T record­ed 605 mur­ders in 2022 and not­ed that po­lice an­nounced a 12 per cent de­tec­tion rate. She said it meant over 500 fam­i­lies were still wait­ing for jus­tice.

She said brazen home in­va­sions are now dai­ly oc­cur­rences in com­mu­ni­ties where crim­i­nals break down cit­i­zens’ doors, beat­ing moth­ers and rap­ing their teenagers.

“This can­not be right. You can­not tell me you are com­ing here and sit­ting down and talk­ing about all this con­fu­sion, and you are not telling me when we are get­ting the pep­per spray and when we will have the cam­eras be­cause they are sim­ple things that Gov­ern­ment can do and worst of all, the scan­ners. Some­body is let­ting the guns and the co­caine pass,” John said.

John re­called the Po­lice Ser­vice say­ing last year that 85 per cent of mur­ders were gun-re­lat­ed and firearms were pass­ing through le­gal ports. She said every­one in Gov­ern­ment knows this but al­lows it to con­tin­ue.

“Shame! Six hun­dred mur­ders last year, and the sta­tis­tic is we on track to meet that and beat that this year, and we come here talk­ing about 3.7 per cent?”

Dur­ing her con­tri­bu­tion, John re­called the names of An­drea Lal­lan, the 13-year-old Rio Claro teenag­er shot dead by a gun­man hours af­ter she iden­ti­fied her al­leged rapist and nurs­ing stu­dent Shar­day Em­manuel, 20, who dis­ap­peared in 2018.

John said it ap­peared that a bed is the most dan­ger­ous place for any child in T&T, yet Gov­ern­ment still al­lows il­le­gal en­try through the coun­try’s porous bor­ders.

She re­called Kylie Mal­oney, six, meet­ing a grue­some death while asleep at her home in San­gre Grande last Jan­u­ary. John said Kylie was in her bed, where every six-year-old should be at 2 am, but a gun­man broke in­to her house.

“Long ago, I re­mem­ber grow­ing up in To­ba­go, and they would force you on Christ­mas Eve night to go and sleep be­cause San­ta was com­ing and you are look­ing for­ward to San­ta, Dancer and Prancer. Now it is San­ta, Dancer, Prancer and mur­der for lit­tle chil­dren. That is what is go­ing on in this coun­try, and those are the mark­ers we have look at.”

She re­called the mur­der of Ja­mal Mod­este, nine, on a field at African Recre­ation Ground in En­ter­prise, Ch­agua­nas, in Oc­to­ber 2022, when gun­men opened fire. She re­called Anisa Mo­hammed, cry­ing, “They killed my chil­dren for noth­ing,” af­ter gun­men mur­dered Faith Pe­terkin, 10, Ar­i­an­na Pe­terkin, 14, Shain Pe­terkin, 17, and Tiffany Pe­terkin, 19, at their home in Gua­napo re­cent­ly.

John said the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty has a $6.912 bil­lion al­lo­ca­tion for fis­cal 2024, more than 2023, so it has funds. She said par­lia­men­tar­i­ans should be up­front with the pub­lic on crime, as there was vary­ing com­men­tary on who is re­spon­si­ble and what the Op­po­si­tion should do.

John said the hard truth was that Gov­ern­ment is re­spon­si­ble for safe­ty, not the Op­po­si­tion. She says Par­lia­ment does not give the UNC pow­er or re­sources to fight crime. How­ev­er, the par­ty has a moral re­spon­si­bil­i­ty as elect­ed of­fi­cials to de­vise plans and ideas to share with Gov­ern­ment. She said the UNC had achieved this du­ty.