As To­ba­go record­ed its tenth homi­cide for the year on Sat­ur­day, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley is con­cerned that crim­i­nal el­e­ments were now op­er­at­ing as if the twin-is­land na­tion was their play­ground.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from re­porters dur­ing a me­dia brief­ing at the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port yes­ter­day, fol­low­ing his re­turn from a 12-day trip to In­dia and Ghana, Row­ley ac­knowl­edged that crime con­tin­ued to in­vade every part of T&T.

He said crim­i­nal el­e­ments were con­stant­ly wait­ing and watch­ing for an op­por­tune mo­ment to strike.

In­di­cat­ing the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty (MNS) was re­spon­si­ble for en­sur­ing the pro­tec­tion and se­cu­ri­ty of cit­i­zens on both is­lands, he said, “What we are con­cerned about is the fact that the crim­i­nals are not con­fined to any one part of the coun­try.”

“They see the na­tion as their play­ground and they look for op­por­tu­ni­ties to con­duct their ne­far­i­ous ac­tiv­i­ties.”

On the is­sue of meet­ing with To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine re­gard­ing the call for a po­lice force to be es­tab­lished by the THA , Row­ley said, “What we have to en­sure is that Trinidad and To­ba­go gets the best arrange­ment for se­cur­ing its pop­u­la­tion in re­sponse to ram­pant crim­i­nal con­duct by a grow­ing num­ber of per­sons in the so­ci­ety.”

Point­ing out there were agen­cies for that, the Prime Min­is­ter said, “I am a lit­tle dis­ap­point­ed to see that To­ba­go is be­com­ing like the rest of the na­tion be­cause giv­en its small com­mu­ni­ty, its se­mi-iso­la­tion, I was ex­pect­ing that we would have been a lit­tle more on top of that.”

“But the crim­i­nals have free­dom of move­ment, free­dom of as­so­ci­a­tion and they look for op­por­tu­ni­ties in To­ba­go, and un­for­tu­nate­ly, some of the neg­a­tives that are hap­pen­ing here in Trinidad are now hap­pen­ing in To­ba­go be­cause the same peo­ple, or the same type of peo­ple do­ing the same type of thing are choos­ing to do it in To­ba­go.”

Look­ing to the po­lice and the se­cu­ri­ty ser­vices on the is­land as well as the THA to as­sist in the ef­fort to fight crime, Row­ley said the is­sue of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty was the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment. He vowed, “We will dis­charge that re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and we are pre­pared to work with any and all cit­i­zens, agen­cies and en­ti­ties to en­sure that the crim­i­nals do not pre­vail and con­tin­ue to ter­rorise us in­def­i­nite­ly.”

Last week, Au­gus­tine pro­posed that a THA po­lice force will be a ma­jor com­po­nent of the De­part­ment of Pub­lic Safe­ty which they are mov­ing to es­tab­lish.

It is en­vi­sioned that it will work along­side the po­lice to try and ar­rest the is­land’s grow­ing crime sit­u­a­tion.

Moves are al­so afoot to re-es­tab­lish the To­ba­go Com­mu­ni­ty Safe­ty Pro­gramme to bridge the gap be­tween com­mu­ni­ties, the po­lice and the THA in the fight against crime.

The an­nounce­ment on May 17 came on the heels of the ten mur­ders so far record­ed in To­ba­go for 2024.

Last Wednes­day, Ply­mouth res­i­dent An­tho­ny “See­ba” May­nard, 42, was shot dead dur­ing a dri­ve-by. His mur­der came days af­ter an­oth­er res­i­dent of the area Nike­sha Sandy was gunned down while on the way to work.

Yes­ter­day, se­nior po­lice of­fi­cials told Guardian Me­dia that as part of its im­me­di­ate re­sponse to try and get the killings in To­ba­go down, at least one in­spec­tor from the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions has been tem­porar­i­ly trans­ferred to the is­land to boost crime-fight­ing ef­forts.

Re­fer­ring to the mu­nic­i­pal po­lice units op­er­at­ing in the 14 re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions in Trinidad, Row­ley said, “If the THA as an en­ti­ty of that sim­i­lar na­ture, wants to have a lo­cal Con­stab­u­lary, I don’t see any prob­lem with that.”