JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Wednesday, February 26, 2025

Kamla wants legal age for ganja use, gambling at 25

.... also promises no property tax, electricity or water hike in manifesto

by

183 days ago
20240827
UNC leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar greets a supporter at te party's cottage meeting at the UNC headquarters in Chaguanas on Monday.

UNC leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar greets a supporter at te party's cottage meeting at the UNC headquarters in Chaguanas on Monday.

COURTESY:UNC/FACEBOOK

The Op­po­si­tion UNC's gen­er­al elec­tion man­i­festo plans in­clude rais­ing the le­gal age for mar­i­jua­na use and gam­bling to 25 years and old­er, sup­port­ing vic­tims of crime with jobs and hous­ing - and in­tro­duc­ing a con­sti­tu­tion­al right for an ac­cused per­son to have a tri­al with­in a rea­son­able time.

UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who re­vealed some of the par­ty's man­i­festo on Mon­day night, said her Gov­ern­ment will al­so con­sid­er in­tro­duc­ing a sys­tem of mon­e­tary re­wards for po­lice of­fi­cers and di­vi­sions where crime is kept low

And there will be no prop­er­ty tax or in­creas­es in wa­ter and elec­tric­i­ty rates in this dire eco­nom­ic cli­mate.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar un­veiled the plans at the par­ty's Mon­day Night Re­port at its Ch­agua­nas head­quar­ters.

She said the UNC has its draft man­i­festo and the first copy will be un­veiled on­line lat­er.

"We're out front, we're ready for this gen­er­al elec­tion when­ev­er it's called ... Put some steel in your back­bone - this elec­tion will not be easy. This is the moth­er of all elec­tions for us," she warned.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said in­stead of dis­trac­tions about chang­ing the Coat of Arms, "Gov­ern­ment would bet­ter serve peo­ple by fo­cus­ing on the 'Boats of Arms' and am­mu­ni­tion ar­riv­ing freely which cre­at­ed an un­prece­dent­ed crime wave."

"We're eight months in­to 2024, and al­ready, the mur­der rate as of (Sun­day) is over 400! Every na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter and com­mis­sion­er of po­lice ap­point­ed by the PNM in the last nine years has failed," she said.

She added, "The on­ly things that caused a slow­down in crime were COVID-19 and the lock­downs. Dur­ing COVID, we saw two-tier polic­ing where the eat-a-food fake elites and Gov­ern­ment's friends were al­lowed by the po­lice to have pool par­ties and wed­dings. Av­er­age cit­i­zens were ha­rassed, ter­rorised, fined, and tick­et­ed for be­ing in their pri­vate cars with fam­i­ly mem­bers or hav­ing a fam­i­ly get-to­geth­er at home. The Gov­ern­ment and po­lice used COVID lock­downs to sup­press dis­sent and any protests but they al­lowed high friends, fam­i­ly, and fi­nanciers to have events."

Re­fer­ring to the PNM's track record on crime she said, "For the last nine years, there's been an out-of-con­trol crime spree be­cause they have no plan or pol­i­cy, on­ly ar­ro­gance, and in­ter­fer­ence in se­lec­tion of a CoP...

"First, they by­passed the top three se­lec­tions; one, Du­lalchan, two, Philips and three, Williams, to hand­pick the fourth-ranked per­son, Gary Grif­fith.

"Dur­ing Grif­fith's time, we had 2018 (523 mur­ders), 2019 (539 mur­ders), 2020 (COVID's many months of lock­downs, 396 mur­ders), 2021 (448 mur­ders) - 1,906 mur­ders span­ning the years 2018 to 2021 un­der Grif­fith. The PNM in­ter­fered and put the fourth-ranked per­son.

"Then they in­ter­fered to in­ter­cept the mer­it list to kick out Grif­fith. They hand­picked Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob (2022 - 613 mur­ders). Then they chose Er­la (2023 – 577 mur­ders; eight months in 2024, over 400 mur­ders). We've had al­most 4,500 mur­ders un­der this Gov­ern­ment!"

She said crime, crim­i­nal­i­ty and gang war­fare had now cre­at­ed a new type of tourism, where for­eign YouTube in­flu­encers come to "ex­ploit the suf­fer­ing of our crime sit­u­a­tion."

Man­i­festo plans

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the crime sit­u­a­tion is out of con­trol be­cause the crim­i­nal and civ­il jus­tice sys­tem was in a mess.

"We have to fix it via a sep­a­rate Jus­tice Min­istry," she said.

She said Part One of UNC's plans for the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem will do the fol­low­ing:

* Com­pre­hen­sive re­view of all crim­i­nal laws to weed out ob­so­lete ones that are op­pres­sive to a free de­mo­c­ra­t­ic so­ci­ety or cause un­nec­es­sary bu­reau­cra­cy.

* Cat­e­gorise the of­fences of mur­der and rape in­to first-de­gree and sec­ond-de­gree mur­der.

* In­tro­duce a con­sti­tu­tion­al right of an ac­cused to have a tri­al with­in a rea­son­able time. There may be in­no­cent peo­ple await­ing.

* Place vic­tims at the cen­tre of the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem from the be­gin­ning: pro­vid­ing sup­port, in­clud­ing resti­tu­tion, job place­ments, hous­ing and so­cial pro­grammes. Due to cur­rent low de­tec­tion and con­vic­tion rate, sup­port will be giv­en re­gard­less of if some­one is caught/con­vict­ed.

* Con­sid­er in­tro­duc­ing mon­e­tary re­wards for po­lice of­fi­cers and di­vi­sions where crime is kept low and crime-fight­ing tar­gets are met to mo­ti­vate them.

* Pro­vide need­ed re­sources to en­sure that cas­es in­volv­ing of­fences against chil­dren and sex­u­al of­fences are de­ter­mined rapid­ly.

* Raise the le­gal age for mar­i­jua­na use and gam­bling to 25 years and old­er.

* In­crease the num­ber of func­tion­al court­rooms. Right now, there is a deficit. Each Judge of the High Court must have a des­ig­nat­ed court­room to en­sure they can sit every day.

* Pro­vide more court­rooms in high­ly pop­u­lat­ed ar­eas out­side the cap­i­tal - Ch­agua­nas, Rio Claro, San­gre Grande, Diego Mar­tin.

* In­crease crit­i­cal sup­port for the ju­di­cia­ry to en­sure back­log re­duc­tion and tri­al in­dictable cas­es with­in 2-3 years.

* Mod­ernise pris­ons and break up large pris­ons in­to small­er ones for bet­ter in­mate mon­i­tor­ing.

* Cre­ate small­er de­ten­tion cen­tres around T&T to break up gang ac­tiv­i­ty and en­sure clos­er fam­i­ly sup­port to pris­on­ers by en­abling reg­u­lar vis­i­ta­tion. En­sure that in­car­cer­at­ed per­sons are al­lowed fre­quent vis­i­ta­tion by their chil­dren.

* Es­tab­lish low­er se­cu­ri­ty pris­ons for first-time non-vi­o­lent of­fend­ers who can get day­time work re­lease.

* Im­ple­ment ap­pro­pri­ate so­cial pro­grammes in­volv­ing train­ing, life skills to pre­vent re­cidi­vism.

* Com­pre­hen­sive­ly re­form/re­ori­ent the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem to cater to all chil­dren, not just aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly gift­ed ones, and par­tic­u­lar­ly, to iden­ti­fy young per­sons with learn­ing dis­abil­i­ties/ vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties so they can be guid­ed to pro­duc­tive ac­tiv­i­ties. Most crim­i­nals have not been suc­cess­ful in the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem.

* En­cour­age par­tic­i­pa­tion of NGOs and ser­vice or­gan­i­sa­tions in men­tor­ing youth, vi­tal to pre­vent­ing them from falling un­der gang lead­ers' in­flu­ence.

* Sup­port sin­gle par­ents, in­clud­ing af­ter-school care, to en­sure chil­dren are su­per­vised. Na­tion­wide home­work cen­tres for rein­tro­duc­tion.

* Re­sources for the DPP's and Pub­lic De­fend­er's of­fices en­sur­ing bet­ter con­di­tions/salaries.

UNC's peo­ple-cen­tered poli­cies al­so in­clude:

* Plac­ing po­lice of­fi­cers to pa­trol in­side schools to pro­tect chil­dren

* Low­er tax­es, and be­ing against the in­tro­duc­tion of any new tax­es.

* Low­er fu­el prices, con­sid­er re­open­ing the Petrotrin re­fin­ery, no VAT on 7,000 food items.

* A work­ers' agen­da; re­open­ing GATE; free lap­tops for sec­ondary school chil­dren; tablets for pri­ma­ry school chil­dren.

* Ex­pand­ing Chil­dren's Life Fund to cov­er more ill­ness­es.

* Re­view the de­mer­it sys­tem and halt "op­pres­sive abu­sive tick­et­ing of mo­torists."

* Com­pre­hen­sive au­dit of HDC ap­pli­ca­tions - con­tact­ing and see­ing all who still need hous­ing, pri­ori­tis­ing those with long-stand­ing ap­pli­ca­tions; Land for the Land­less pol­i­cy.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored