Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Re­sum­ing hang­ings in T&T is some­thing the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress can once again con­sid­er if it is elect­ed to of­fice. And un­der a UNC coali­tion gov­ern­ment, a new com­mis­sion­er of po­lice will be ap­point­ed.

UNC po­lit­i­cal leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar spoke on these is­sues at Thurs­day’s An­ti-Crime Con­sul­ta­tions at the Cen­tre Pointe Mall in Ch­agua­nas.

Au­di­ence mem­ber Randy Ram­per­sad, from the Ch­agua­nas busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, spoke about what he said was the slow ap­proval of Firearms Users Li­cences (FUL) amid high crime sta­tis­tics.

He asked Per­sad-Bisses­sar, “Up­on as­sum­ing of­fice in the first 60 days, will you re­struc­ture, re­align or re­or­gan­ise the FUL sec­tion so that busi­ness­men can pro­tect their fam­i­lies and prop­er­ties? Al­so, up­on as­sum­ing of­fice, will you con­sid­er re­sum­ing hang­ings in T&T?”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the UNC would give con­sid­er­a­tion to the sug­ges­tions made and ques­tions asked. She said the par­ty had al­ready spo­ken of giv­ing le­gal firearms to law-abid­ing cit­i­zens.

“Yes, we’re on the same path­way and on the oth­er is­sue (hang­ing), it is some­thing that as a for­mer UNC gov­ern­ment, we’d put in­to place, but the then-PNM nev­er sup­port­ed it. So, it’s some­thing that we can once again con­sid­er,” she said.

On the is­sue of a com­mis­sion­er of po­lice, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Tu­na­puna can­di­date Roger Alexan­der had spo­ken of putting the right peo­ple in the right place.

“And as God would have it, it would be un­der a UNC gov­ern­ment and our coali­tion part­ners that a new com­mis­sion­er of po­lice will be ap­point­ed. They (PNM) was so hur­ry to call the elec­tion that they didn’t com­plete in­ter­fer­ing with the com­mis­sions to place their per­son in that of­fice and it will fall in­to our hands to make sure we get the right per­son in that po­si­tion,” she said.

Cur­rent CoP Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher’s con­tract ends next month. She is cur­rent­ly on sus­pen­sion.