Geisha Kow­lessar

Crime and vi­o­lence are not on­ly too high in T&T, but seem to have be­come a rou­tine way of life for some, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said last night.

She made the com­ment as she ex­pressed dis­ap­point­ment over the re­cent spike in mur­ders dur­ing the UNC's Mon­day night fo­rum at the Guaico Gov­ern­ment Sec­ondary School, San­gre Grande.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said while se­ri­ous crimes were down by al­most half, the mur­der rate still re­mained un­ac­cept­able.

In mak­ing men­tion of the killings of four mem­bers of a Chatham fam­i­ly and oth­er re­cent mur­ders, in­clud­ing that of prison of­fi­cer An­dell Primus, Per­sad-Bisses­sar urged that the killings and vi­o­lence stop.

"These killings all shock us. But the truth is with more than 200 killings for the year to date these ap­palling crimes have be­come to some al­most rou­tine, al­most nor­mal and part of every­day life.

"But this vi­o­lence has to end," Per­sad-Bisses­sar added, say­ing that the PP Gov­ern­ment would con­tin­ue to put all its re­sources in the fight against crime.

The PM said rob­beries and bur­glar­ies were al­so down by more than half, drug crimes down by more 15 per cent, shoot­ings by 19 per cent and kid­nap­pings at an "all time low."

"But mur­ders are still too many. We know that crime and in par­tic­u­lar vi­o­lent crime, is still too high," Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so lashed out against Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley over his re­fusal to de­bate. She said his re­fusal to re­spond to her chal­lenge last week to de­bate her "one-on-one" was an in­di­ca­tion of his un­will­ing­ness to de­bate. Say­ing his si­lence was deaf­en­ing, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said this was be­cause he had no plans.

"He does not want the peo­ple to know he has no plans, he has no ideas and he is afraid peo­ple will see him for what he is...any an­gry man. A man who will not de­bate is not fit to hold of­fice. A man who treats the peo­ple with con­tempt de­serves to be treat­ed in like man­ner," Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

On plans for To­co/San­gre Grande, the PM said em­pha­sis would be place on eco and cul­tur­al tourism, a re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion of the agri­cul­tur­al sec­tor, im­prov­ing in­fra­struc­ture and the San­gre Grande town cen­tre.

San­cho re­places Grif­fith

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so last night an­nounced that Sport Min­is­ter Brent San­cho had been giv­en the nod for the To­co/San­gre Grande seat, re­plac­ing Dr Ru­pert Grif­fith.

Apart from San­cho, she said Dr David Lee had al­so got the screen­ing com­mit­tee's nod to re­place Er­rol McLeod in Pointe-a-Pierre while Fuad Khan (Barataria/San Juan), Dr Su­ruj Ram­bachan (Tabaquite), Vas­ant Bharath (St Joseph) will get the chance to re­con­test their seat.