OT­TO CAR­RING­TON

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion MPs agree that crime is a se­ri­ous is­sue in Trinidad and To­ba­go, but they dif­fer on whether a state of emer­gency (SoE) is in­deed the so­lu­tion.

The coun­try has al­ready record­ed 436 mur­ders this year, com­pared to 410 in 2023. A re­cent spate of mur­ders sparked alarm across the coun­try, with many call­ing for de­ci­sive ac­tion to be tak­en to bring the sit­u­a­tion un­der con­trol.

In some quar­ters, there have been in­creas­ing calls for the Gov­ern­ment to con­sid­er im­ple­ment­ing a state of emer­gency (SoE). On­ly yes­ter­day, some busi­ness lead­ers said they would sup­port a lim­it­ed SoE in crime hotspot ar­eas, sim­i­lar to what is done in Ja­maica.

Ahead of the re­sump­tion of Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, Op­po­si­tion MP Khadi­jah Ameen ac­knowl­edged that the SoE had some im­pact when im­ple­ment­ed in 2011 but crit­i­cised the cur­rent Gov­ern­ment for lack­ing in­no­v­a­tive ideas to ad­dress the crime sit­u­a­tion.

“When we speak about these is­sues, it’s be­cause we are on the ground with peo­ple who are feel­ing the pain—chil­dren, adults, and pen­sion­ers alike. The Gov­ern­ment needs to get se­ri­ous about crime. They have not shown any clear un­der­stand­ing of what’s hap­pen­ing, what’s dri­ving the crime, or any in­ten­tion of ad­dress­ing its root caus­es, in­creas­ing the rate of jus­tice, or restor­ing a sense of jus­tice in this coun­try,” she said.

She added, “The lack of con­fi­dence in re­ceiv­ing jus­tice when wronged is fu­elling more crime and crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty. The Gov­ern­ment is clear­ly out of its depth, show­ing they have no an­swers. The pop­u­la­tion, how­ev­er, has one an­swer: to vote.”

Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment, Faris Al-Rawi, de­fend­ed Gov­ern­ment’s ap­proach, say­ing they have en­act­ed sig­nif­i­cant leg­is­la­tion to com­bat crime and that pos­i­tive changes will take time to ma­te­ri­alise.

“As at­tor­ney gen­er­al dur­ing my tenure, I over­saw the state of emer­gency dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, along with oth­er pub­lic health crises. A state of emer­gency is not some­thing that should be de­ployed light­ly; it car­ries se­ri­ous con­se­quences. If you look back at the 2011 State of Emer­gency, the re­sult­ing lit­i­ga­tion was dis­as­trous for the State.

“What is need­ed now is ex­act­ly what the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil are ad­vo­cat­ing for: heavy polic­ing and strict en­force­ment of the law,” he said.

Al-Rawi added, “I want to re­mind you that peo­ple used to at­tend court phys­i­cal­ly. When I passed those laws in 2016 and 2017, un­der the Prime Min­is­ter’s guid­ance, we in­tro­duced vir­tu­al courts, abol­ished pre­lim­i­nary in­quiries, im­ple­ment­ed plea bar­gain­ing, and be­gan us­ing judge-on­ly tri­als. None of these re­forms ex­ist­ed when I be­came At­tor­ney Gen­er­al in 2015.”

He said while cit­i­zens may not feel safer im­me­di­ate­ly, change is on the way be­cause of the work Gov­ern­ment is do­ing to ad­dress crime.

“There is hope. Will it make peo­ple feel safer im­me­di­ate­ly? Not right away, but I be­lieve we’re mov­ing in the right di­rec­tion. Cer­tain­ly, much more needs to be done. I can as­sure you that the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty is do­ing his part, and we just need to band to­geth­er to get this done. We can’t give up,” he added.

Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Hous­ing and Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment, Adri­an Leonce, ad­mit­ted that crime is an is­sue but not­ed that pol­i­tics must be set aside to ad­dress it.

“As you know, the laws lim­it cer­tain ac­tions, and we have been in­tro­duc­ing a suite of leg­is­la­tion in an ef­fort to gain sup­port and move for­ward. I be­lieve it’s time to set pol­i­tics aside and start im­ple­ment­ing mea­sures to ef­fec­tive­ly fight and sup­press this scourge that we are all ex­pe­ri­enc­ing, which has im­pact­ed every one of us,” Leonce said.

But Ca­roni Cen­tral MP Arnold Ram felt that an SoE was a vi­able op­tion, not­ing that Ja­maica has al­so im­ple­ment­ed it in re­sponse to sim­i­lar chal­lenges.

“Well, the state of emer­gency was used suc­cess­ful­ly in 2011 by the Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ad­min­is­tra­tion, as you know, and the then-Op­po­si­tion, who are in gov­ern­ment now, crit­i­cised that ini­tia­tive.

“It is ei­ther that op­tion or some form of a lim­it­ed state of emer­gency, which has worked quite suc­cess­ful­ly in parts of Ja­maica, that needs to be con­sid­ered,” Ram said.