DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley yes­ter­day urged the five dis­si­dent mem­bers of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) and the wider Op­po­si­tion to back leg­is­la­tion pro­posed by his Gov­ern­ment aimed at tack­ling crime.

He told Par­lia­ment the Gov­ern­ment is de­vel­op­ing a mech­a­nism for na­tion­als re­turn­ing from con­flict zones. It is one of the pro­posed laws he hopes the Op­po­si­tion will sup­port, giv­en the ris­ing ten­sions in the Mid­dle East.

“I am in­struct­ing the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al to speak to all mem­bers on the oth­er side, es­pe­cial­ly those who have in­di­cat­ed, and as the draft is ready, to make the draft avail­able to them and we will see who will come to this House and sup­port it so we can ad­vance that,” he said.

Row­ley said he plans to in­tro­duce the To­ba­go Self-Gov­er­nance Bill im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter the Bud­get de­bate con­cludes and not­ed that Tabaquite MP Ani­ta Haynes, Na­pari­ma MP Rod­ney Charles, Ma­yaro MP Rush­ton Paray, Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la MP Dr Rai Rag­bir, and Ch­agua­nas West MP Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to vote with their con­science af­ter be­ing side­lined by their leader, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

“They have come out from un­der the yoke of the Mem­ber for Siparia and now they are free to be de­cent and pa­tri­ot­ic cit­i­zens. You said you would sup­port good leg­is­la­tion. We have a piece of leg­is­la­tion be­fore the Par­lia­ment for To­ba­go’s in­ter­nal self-gov­ern­ment com­ing from the com­mit­tee in this House. I ask you to read it be­cause as soon as the Bud­get is over, I’m go­ing to bring it back to the floor and if you re­al­ly be­lieve in be­ing pa­tri­ot­ic, you will sup­port what that bill sup­ports for the peo­ple of To­ba­go.”

Dr Row­ley al­so out­lined oth­er leg­is­la­tion, in­clud­ing a Con­trol Op­er­a­tions Bill, which will en­able law en­force­ment of­fi­cers to con­duct un­der­cov­er op­er­a­tions and gath­er ev­i­dence while en­sur­ing pub­lic safe­ty and suc­cess­ful pros­e­cu­tion.

“As soon as that draft is avail­able, I will ask the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al to make it avail­able to them on the oth­er side and then we’ll come back to the house and we’ll see who will vote for it,” he said.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, Row­ley an­nounced plans for a Firearms Amend­ment Bill aimed at ban­ning as­sault weapons and high-pow­ered ri­fles.