Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Weeks af­ter se­nior law en­force­ment of­fi­cers com­plained of il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties tak­ing place along the open coast­lines, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has ad­mit­ted that crime is one of the biggest chal­lenges fac­ing her Gov­ern­ment. On Tues­day, she recom­mit­ted her­self to fight­ing those in the un­der­world by re­ju­ve­nat­ing the pro­tec­tive ser­vices and dou­bling train­ing ca­pac­i­ties at the Po­lice Acad­e­my. De­spite pa­trols by the Coast Guard, se­nior de­tec­tives said there have been in­creased re­ports of hu­man traf­fick­ing, pira­cy, drug traf­fick­ing, smug­gling and gun run­ning be­cause the coastal radars were dys­func­tion­al and Gov­ern­ment had re­fused to fol­low through on the pur­chase of Off­shore Pa­trol Ves­sels (OPV's).

But Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she would con­tin­ue to tack­le crime in the sec­ond year of gov­er­nance by boost­ing morale in the pro­tec­tive ser­vices. She told sup­port­ers at the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship's one-year an­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tion on Tues­day at the Mid-Cen­tre Mall, Ch­agua­nas, about plans for the pro­tec­tive ser­vices which her Gov­ern­ment would put in place: She said: "In the sec­ond year, we plan to dou­ble the train­ing ca­pac­i­ty at the Po­lice Acad­e­my. We will al­so re­vise the Crime Com­pen­sa­tion Act to in­crease the sums payable to po­lice, sol­diers and fire of­fi­cers who die in the line of du­ty. The sum cur­rent­ly giv­en is $50,000." Per­sad-Bisses­sar added that there will al­so be a broad­en­ing of the $1,000 du­ty al­lowance to in­clude 5,000 of­fi­cers in the De­fence Force and 2,500 work­ers in the Fire Ser­vices which would take the to­tal num­ber of peo­ple ben­e­fit­ing from this to 13,500.

She said the new ben­e­fits would be im­ple­ment­ed in the up­com­ing bud­get. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said a Spe­cial Po­lice Recog­ni­tion Pro­gramme would al­so be set up to re­ward good of­fi­cers. She un­der­scored the im­por­tance of ded­i­ca­tion to du­ty and said that must be pub­licly ac­knowl­edged. As to where the mon­ey would come from to re­ward and pay ad­di­tion­al salaries to pro­tec­tive of­fi­cers, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said when the Spe­cial An­ti-Crime Unit was dis­man­tled, 15 for­eign­ers were tak­ing home $70 mil­lion.

"Se­lect­ed of­fi­cers were tak­ing home $50,000. This mon­ey will go to­wards pay­ing du­ty al­lowance to over a 1,000 po­lice of­fi­cers when we send those for­eign­ers back home," she said. She al­so spoke of boost­ing eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty in Cen­tral Trinidad by es­tab­lish­ing a third air­port.

She said: "For those in Cen­tral, we will es­tab­lish a do­mes­tic air­port in Cam­den, Cou­va. It will form part of the link be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go and will re­lieve traf­fic bur­dens for those peo­ple in the south. "In the fu­ture we will move to the de­vel­op­ment of an in­ter­na­tion­al air­port in cen­tral Trinidad. Un­der your Gov­ern­ment, we would cre­ate a third air­port which would form part of a clus­ter of de­vel­op­ment which would sup­port the Point Lisas Es­tate, the golf course at Sevil­la, the Her­itage vil­lage at Brechin Cas­tle and bring ho­tel con­struc­tion. Jobs will al­so be cre­at­ed for small busi­ness­es," she said. She al­so an­nounced more free trans­port for school­child­ren and se­nior cit­i­zens over 60 on Pub­lic Trans­porta­tion Ser­vice Cor­po­ra­tion (PTSC) bus­es-a mea­sure which was al­ready in place by the pre­vi­ous Gov­ern­ment.

On the stage, Per­cy Vil­lafana, the man who rose to fame af­ter he snubbed for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning, was al­so laud­ed on Tues­day night.

Vil­lafana was called on the stage by the Prime Min­is­ter be­fore a swell of yel­low-clad sup­port­ers. Thank­ing Vil­lafana for his brav­ery, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the Part­ner­ship had dis­proved those de­trac­tors who be­lieved that the par­ty would not last in of­fice be­yond a month. The PM al­so laud­ed an­oth­er pen­sion­er, for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day and she wished him a hap­py birth­day, which he cel­e­brat­ed yes­ter­day. Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so cel­e­brat­ed a recom­mit­ment by all coali­tion part­ners to forge ahead with col­lab­o­ra­tive gov­er­nance, ex­plain­ing that much would be done in the sec­ond year to bring de­liv­ery to the peo­ple. The cel­e­bra­tions end­ed be­fore 11 pm with a dis­play of fire­works and bursts of con­fet­ti.