DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

Politi­cians are tak­ing a beat­ing from busi­ness groups that are frus­trat­ed over their fail­ure to col­lab­o­rate to hold dis­cus­sions that can ul­ti­mate­ly lead to curb the coun­try’s ris­ing crime wave.

Tak­ing both the rul­ing Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) and Op­po­si­tion Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) to task yes­ter­day, Guardian Hold­ings Lim­it­ed (GHL) CEO Ian Chi­napoo said this coun­try’s lead­ers should move swift­ly to find so­lu­tions to the crime scourge.

Chi­napoo was re­spond­ing to ques­tions about the fail­ure of Gov­ern­ment and the UNC to meet for an­ti-crime at the Amer­i­can Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce’s (AM­CHAM) Eco­nom­ic Out­look Fo­rum 2024 at the Hy­att Re­gency, Port-of-Spain.

He said politi­cians across the di­vide should put coun­try first and fo­cus less on hold­ing of­fice.

“Un­less we get to­geth­er and get over our­selves and stop think­ing about the next elec­tion, we will be think­ing about what our great grand­chil­dren are gonna be liv­ing in, or we’re gonna cre­ate a sit­u­a­tion where we con­tin­ue hav­ing brain drain,” he said.

Chi­napoo al­so said he was dis­ap­point­ed that the PNM/UNC talks have been de­layed.

“We don’t feel good about it. We feel that na­tion­al in­ter­est should su­per­sede any type of po­lit­i­cal, par­ti­san be­hav­iour and crime is a na­tion­al is­sue. I don’t think any crim­i­nal asks your po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tion be­fore they rob you, or shoot you, or kill you,” Chi­napoo said sar­cas­ti­cal­ly.

“Hope­ful­ly, the folks that we have en­trust­ed with our so­ci­etal needs and de­vel­op­ment in terms of our politi­cians can get to­geth­er and just get it done, man. There are is­sues that they have to deal with and we stand ready to be called up­on.”

Al­so crit­i­cis­ing the lack of progress to­wards these dis­cus­sions was AM­CHAM CEO Ni­rad Tewarie, who ex­pressed dis­ap­point­ment in the coun­try’s lead­ers. Tewarie said joint crime talks will send a strong sig­nal to law-abid­ing cit­i­zens and crim­i­nals alike that it will not be busi­ness as usu­al. He al­so said it would demon­strate that as elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives, they are will­ing to do what­ev­er it takes to en­sure the safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of the coun­try.

“Of course, it’s dis­ap­point­ing. We ex­pect our lead­ers to find ways to work to­geth­er in the in­ter­est of the coun­try. So, it is dis­ap­point­ing. But it’s a new year and we hope that they will put what­ev­er is­sues they have aside and get to­geth­er and meet to­ward tan­gi­ble out­comes—agree­ments on pieces of leg­is­la­tion that they may need to pass, ini­tia­tives that they would like to im­ple­ment and send a strong, clear and uni­fied mes­sage to the coun­try that we are go­ing to do some­thing and we are go­ing to see our lead­ers do­ing some­thing about crime and work­ing to­geth­er,” Tewarie said.

Mean­while, Dig­i­cel Trinidad and To­ba­go CEO Abra­ham Smith told Guardian Me­dia he would not spec­u­late about po­ten­tial talks be­tween the Gov­ern­ment and the Op­po­si­tion.

How­ev­er, Smith ac­knowl­edged that while con­ver­sa­tions are tak­ing place among the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty and in po­lit­i­cal spheres, more dis­cus­sions are need­ed. He said the pop­u­la­tion should al­so take some re­spon­si­bil­i­ty in the fight against crime.

“We al­so have to be think­ing about crime, not just as a prob­lem that’s for busi­ness or for so­ci­ety, but it’s a re­sult and so we have to be mak­ing changes as a so­ci­ety to make sure that we’re ad­dress­ing those root caus­es,” he said.

He ex­pressed hope that T&T’s lead­ers could iden­ti­fy a com­mon goal to work to­geth­er.

“As we lis­ten to each oth­er, as we recog­nise that we’re all more sim­i­lar than we are dif­fer­ent and if we look past what­ev­er af­fil­i­a­tion we’ve got, what­ev­er race we are, whether we’ve been here five years or 50 years, we’re gonna get to a bet­ter place as a so­ci­ety,” he said.

The com­ments came 128 days af­ter Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo, on Sep­tem­ber 11, called for col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween the Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion for leg­isla­tive mea­sures de­signed to help fight crime.

Both the PNM and UNC formed teams for those an­ti-crime talks but UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has re­fused to move for­ward un­til Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley an­swers a let­ter she sent to him on the mat­ter. She al­so wants Row­ley to lead the talks, while the PM in­sists the team he has se­lect­ed, which is head­ed by At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour, is well suit­ed for the talks at hand.