KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les is call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to re­veal its crime plan, in­sist­ing that the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency (SoE) alone will not solve the coun­try’s crime prob­lem.

Her re­newed call comes days af­ter Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der said the Gov­ern­ment would no longer pub­licly share its crime-fight­ing strate­gies, ar­gu­ing that do­ing so could alert crim­i­nals and give them an ad­van­tage be­fore mea­sures are im­ple­ment­ed.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia af­ter at­tend­ing a thanks­giv­ing ser­vice for the 137th an­niver­sary of the Bor­ough of Ari­ma at the San­ta Rosa RC Church yes­ter­day, Beck­les re­mind­ed the pub­lic that she sup­port­ed the SoE be­cause of the pop­u­la­tion’s gen­uine con­cern over crime.

“We re­mem­ber the fact that when we had the SoE, the po­si­tion of this Gov­ern­ment was that it was ‘po­lit­i­cal gim­mick­ry,’ so we await to see ex­act­ly what is go­ing to hap­pen,” she said.

She not­ed re­ports about lawyers vis­it­ing de­tainees at Staubles Bay and in­for­ma­tion emerg­ing from those held un­der the SoE, but stressed that it was still ear­ly days.

“For me as Leader of the Op­po­si­tion, my main con­cern is the pop­u­la­tion’s gen­uine con­cern about crime and there­fore that is why we sup­port­ed the SoE. Peo­ple want to move around com­fort­ably, no mat­ter where they go,” she said.

Beck­les re­it­er­at­ed her will­ing­ness to work with the Gov­ern­ment on ef­fec­tive an­ti-crime leg­is­la­tion.

“If the Gov­ern­ment brings good leg­is­la­tion, we are will­ing to sup­port it, we are will­ing to con­sult. Trinidad and To­ba­go must come first. But we have made it very clear — the SoE by it­self can­not solve crime, and we are await­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s plan.”