The Trinidad and To­ba­go Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA) has re­newed its call for greater ef­forts to com­bat il­lic­it trade ac­tiv­i­ties in the coun­try.

In a re­lease, the TTMA not­ed the il­lic­it op­er­a­tions were a part of ris­ing crime with­in T&T which ad­verse­ly af­fect the coun­try’s so­cial and eco­nom­ic progress.

TTMA’s Pres­i­dent, Ms Tri­cia Coos­al, who made ref­er­ence to Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s re­cent state­ment that the dra­mat­ic es­ca­la­tion in vi­o­lent crime is now at cri­sis-lev­el, agreed that vi­o­lent crime is at an ex­tra-or­di­nary high and un­bear­able lev­el and calls for the Gov­ern­ment to en­sure our bor­ders are ad­e­quate­ly pa­trolled to specif­i­cal­ly pre­vent il­lic­it trad­ed ac­tiv­i­ties, which are linked to se­ri­ous crime.

She said, “Our cur­rent porous bor­ders al­low for a mag­ni­tude of is­sues, es­pe­cial­ly the traf­fick­ing of nar­cotics, hu­mans, weapons, cig­a­rettes, al­co­hol, wildlife and phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals. While the TTMA’s Il­lic­it Trade Desk has been ac­tive in lob­by­ing against the smug­gling of sub-stan­dard and harm­ful goods, the il­le­gal act con­tin­ues. We at the TTMA are in­creas­ing­ly wor­ried over the far-reach­ing ef­fects it may have on our econ­o­my, which is still strug­gling to re­turn to “nor­mal” ac­tiv­i­ty, giv­en the back­ground of the Rus­sia/Ukraine war, the pan­dem­ic and the dis­rup­tion of ship­ping routes.”

She added the preva­lence of Free Trade Zones and Spe­cial Eco­nom­ic Zones can cause a myr­i­ad of is­sues as it re­lates to the en­try of il­le­gal guns and am­mu­ni­tion, if left unchecked and un­su­per­vised.

Coos­al said, “Ac­cord­ing to the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA), there are ap­prox­i­mate­ly 12,000 il­le­gal firearms in Trinidad and To­ba­go. TTMA be­lieves with greater cross col­lab­o­ra­tion among na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies, in­clud­ing the Coast Guard, the Port Au­thor­i­ty, Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice – this num­ber can be de­creased. Par­tic­u­lar­ly con­cern­ing to the As­so­ci­a­tion is the re­moval of firearms out of the hands of crim­i­nals who use them for ne­far­i­ous pur­pos­es. We need co­or­di­nat­ed and strate­gic ac­tion.”

Ms Coos­al said the crime wave could al­so im­pact tourism as she sat­ed, “Re­cent­ly, we saw the brazen block­age of our na­tion’s road­ways, which is a com­mon oc­cur­rence. This not on­ly af­fects lo­cal busi­ness op­er­a­tions and com­muters, but al­so makes many of our busi­ness in­vestors ex­treme­ly anx­ious. Tourists and oth­er vis­i­tors to our is­land are be­ing warned to stay away from cer­tain ar­eas and this is detri­men­tal to a pos­i­tive eco­nom­ic out­look.”