Raphael John-Lall

The lat­est State of Emer­gency (SoE) comes at a time when the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty is un­der at­tack.

Last week, in an in­ci­dent which sent shock­waves through­out the Ari­ma busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, a promi­nent Ari­ma busi­ness­man, Azard Pooran, the own­er of the Shock “N” Stock Book Sell­er and Sta­tion­ary Store, lo­cat­ed at the Shops of Ari­ma was gunned down at his home.

It is just the lat­est in­ci­dent in a long string of at­tacks on busi­ness own­ers in re­cent times.

News re­ports in­di­cate that a 44-year-old busi­ness­woman was robbed at her in­sur­ance agency along SS Erin Road, Pe­nal, on Wednes­day, Feb­ru­ary 4, 2026.

Ac­cord­ing to a Guardian Me­dia re­port, a Ste Madeleine dou­bles ven­dor Ramesh Thack­o­ordeen, who op­er­ates the Out­ties Dou­bles stand along the M2 Tasker Road with his fam­i­ly, said the busi­ness has been robbed at least five times in re­cent years.

Fol­low­ing the lat­est surge in crime, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced the an­oth­er SoE. The pre­vi­ous one end­ed on Jan­u­ary 31.

Giv­en the siege un­der which busi­ness own­ers are forced to con­duct busi­ness, Pres­i­dent of the Ari­ma Busi­ness As­so­ci­a­tion (ABA) Sudesh Ramkissoon, in a state­ment to Busi­ness Guardian, said that the lat­est SoE has the “full sup­port” of the Ari­ma busi­ness group..

“The Ari­ma Busi­ness As­so­ci­a­tion would first like to ex­press con­do­lences to the Pooran Fam­i­ly. Mr Pooran was a true pil­lar in our com­mu­ni­ty and his in­ter­ac­tions with his col­leagues and cus­tomers speaks for it­self.

“With re­gards to the rein­tro­duc­tion of the SoE, the as­so­ci­a­tion is in full sup­port. We can­not al­low crime to win. The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS), how­ev­er, needs to now start util­is­ing these tem­po­rary ex­tra pow­ers with in­tent and al­so fig­ure out what leg­is­la­tion they need to as­sist them. We al­so would like to see jus­tice de­liv­ered swift­ly and this can on­ly be done by the ju­di­cia­ry play­ing their part and im­prov­ing on their sys­tems.”

Stud­ies by in­ter­na­tion­al bod­ies show the dev­as­tat­ing im­pact crime and in­se­cu­ri­ty can have on Caribbean economies.

The World Bank’s most re­cent Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean Eco­nom­ic Re­view (LAC­ER) pre­dicts the re­gion will have the slow­est eco­nom­ic growth in the world in the next two years, grow­ing 2.1 per cent in 2025 and 2.4 per cent in 2026.

While per­sis­tent pover­ty and re­duced in­ter­na­tion­al aid con­tin­ue to hin­der progress, the re­port ar­gues that or­gan­ised crime is a key force ex­ac­er­bat­ing the re­gion’s eco­nom­ic woes.

An In­ter-Amer­i­can Bank (IDB) study pub­lished in No­vem­ber 2024 showed that Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean so­cial and eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment re­mains heav­i­ly bur­dened by crime and vi­o­lence.

It al­so said the di­rect costs of crime and vi­o­lence in Latin Amer­i­ca reached 3.44 per cent of the re­gion’s Gross Do­mes­tic Prod­uct (GDP) in 2022, most­ly un­changed from a pre­vi­ous IDB study pub­lished in 2017.

“Our study shows that crime is a sig­nif­i­cant bur­den on our so­ci­eties and eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment. It lim­its growth, dri­ves in­equal­i­ty, and di­verts pri­vate and pub­lic in­vest­ment. We must join and re­dou­ble ef­forts to change that re­al­i­ty,” said Ilan Gold­fa­jn, IDB Pres­i­dent.

SoE brings sta­bil­i­ty

Crime and se­cu­ri­ty ex­pert Garvin Heer­ah told the Busi­ness Guardian that the cur­rent State of Emer­gency presents a win­dow of op­por­tu­ni­ty for the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty to op­er­ate with a greater sense of sta­bil­i­ty and con­fi­dence as law en­force­ment in­ten­si­fies its op­er­a­tions against or­gan­ised crim­i­nal net­works.

“How­ev­er, this pe­ri­od must not lead to com­pla­cen­cy. In­stead, it should be viewed as a strate­gic mo­ment for busi­ness­es to strength­en their in­ter­nal se­cu­ri­ty frame­works and deep­en col­lab­o­ra­tion with law en­force­ment agen­cies. Crime pre­ven­tion can­not be left sole­ly to the State; the pri­vate sec­tor has a crit­i­cal role to play in shar­ing in­for­ma­tion, re­port­ing sus­pi­cious ac­tiv­i­ties and cre­at­ing en­vi­ron­ments that de­ter crim­i­nal in­fil­tra­tion.”

Equal­ly im­por­tant he said is the need for busi­ness­es to ex­er­cise strict due dili­gence in their op­er­a­tions.

“In an en­vi­ron­ment where crim­i­nal en­ter­pris­es of­ten seek to ex­ploit le­git­i­mate busi­ness­es for mon­ey laun­der­ing, il­le­gal trans­ac­tions or lo­gis­ti­cal sup­port, com­pa­nies must re­sist the temp­ta­tion to en­ter­tain ques­tion­able deal­ings for the sake of quick fi­nan­cial re­turns. Sound cor­po­rate gov­er­nance, prop­er back­ground checks, and trans­par­ent fi­nan­cial prac­tices must be­come part of their op­er­a­tional modus operan­di. By build­ing strong, eth­i­cal busi­ness net­works that re­ject il­le­gal prac­tices and ac­tive­ly sup­port law­ful con­duct, the pri­vate sec­tor can be­come a pow­er­ful force in sup­press­ing crime and deny­ing crim­i­nals the eco­nom­ic space they re­ly on to thrive.”

He al­so said Small and Medi­um En­ter­pris­es (SMEs) are par­tic­u­lar­ly vul­ner­a­ble, as many op­er­ate on nar­row mar­gins and re­ly heav­i­ly on dai­ly rev­enue cy­cles and while sta­bil­i­sa­tion of vi­o­lence may cre­ate short-term se­cu­ri­ty re­lief, un­pre­dictabil­i­ty in op­er­at­ing con­di­tions can si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly cre­ate com­mer­cial un­cer­tain­ty.

He said from an in­vestor con­fi­dence and mar­ket per­cep­tion and from a Cari­com and hemi­spher­ic stand­point, re­cur­ring States of Emer­gency raise crit­i­cal ques­tions about struc­tur­al sta­bil­i­ty with­in T&T.

He point­ed out that in­vestors mon­i­tor crime trends, gov­er­nance con­sis­ten­cy, ju­di­cial ef­fec­tive­ness, in­sti­tu­tion­al re­silience and po­lit­i­cal pre­dictabil­i­ty.

“An SoE sig­nals that con­ven­tion­al law en­force­ment mech­a­nisms have been over­whelmed. If this be­comes cycli­cal, it may in­flu­ence for­eign di­rect in­vest­ment (FDI) de­ci­sions, in­sur­ance risk pre­mi­ums, lend­ing con­fi­dence, cred­it as­sess­ments and multi­na­tion­al ex­pan­sion plans. Se­cu­ri­ty in­sta­bil­i­ty in­creas­es the cost of cap­i­tal and risk un­der­writ­ing. The pri­vate sec­tor thrives not mere­ly on safe­ty — but on pre­dictabil­i­ty.”

He spoke about sup­ply chain and com­mer­cial flows and he said in a glob­alised econ­o­my, dis­rup­tions are mag­ni­fied and height­ened such port in­spec­tions, car­go screen­ing, or bor­der tight­en­ing may af­fect im­port/ex­port time­lines, man­u­fac­tur­ing in­puts, re­tail in­ven­to­ry cy­cles and en­er­gy sec­tor lo­gis­tics.

“Giv­en Trinidad and To­ba­go’s en­er­gy-dri­ven econ­o­my and its re­gion­al trade link­ages, pro­longed emer­gency mea­sures could af­fect com­pet­i­tive­ness if not care­ful­ly man­aged.”

He con­clud­ed by say­ing that a State of Emer­gency may be nec­es­sary un­der cer­tain con­di­tions. How­ev­er, ne­ces­si­ty does not re­move the oblig­a­tion for strate­gic re­form.

“For the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, sta­bil­i­ty is the cur­ren­cy of growth. If this SoE re­sults on­ly in de­ten­tions, we will see tem­po­rary re­lief but sus­tained un­cer­tain­ty. If, how­ev­er, it is used to re­set in­sti­tu­tions, con­front in­ter­nal cor­rup­tion, em­bed in­tel­li­gence dom­i­nance, and strength­en pros­e­cu­tion frame­works, it can be­come a turn­ing point. Na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and eco­nom­ic se­cu­ri­ty are in­sep­a­ra­ble.”

Pres­i­dent of the Siparia Cham­ber of Com­merce Emer­son Ched­die told the Busi­ness Guardian that the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to de­clare a SoE in re­sponse to the re­cent surge in vi­o­lent crime is a se­ri­ous and nec­es­sary step to re­store pub­lic safe­ty.

“The most im­me­di­ate ben­e­fit will be the abil­i­ty to con­cen­trate re­sources quick­ly through in­creased pa­trols, tar­get­ted op­er­a­tions against known crim­i­nal net­works and faster co­or­di­na­tion be­tween se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies. These mea­sures can re­duce vi­o­lence in the short term and give res­i­dents and busi­ness­es breath­ing room.”

The crime wave is so se­ri­ous that he said, for lo­cal mer­chants and ser­vice providers, even a tem­po­rary re­duc­tion in street crime can mean the dif­fer­ence be­tween stay­ing open and clos­ing down.

“Our sup­port for the SoE how­ev­er is con­di­tion­al: we ask for clear time­lines and mea­sur­able goals, in­de­pen­dent civil­ian over­sight to pro­tect civ­il lib­er­ties and lo­gis­ti­cal sup­port. En­force­ment alone will not end or­gan­ised crime. Ar­rests with­out sus­tained in­tel­li­gence, time­ly pros­e­cu­tions and com­mu­ni­ty co­op­er­a­tion risk mere­ly dis­plac­ing crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty.”