Doma concerned about ‘silence’ on murder toll

President of the Downtown Owners and Merchants Association (Doma) Gregory Aboud has criticised the “resounding silence” from major quarters of T&T society about the spate of murders. He has called for a change in the management model with greater accountability playing a major role. In a telephone interview with the Trinidad Guardian yesterday, Aboud called the current system “an abject and complete failure.”

And in a media release, Doma expressed concern that after four murders occurred on Monday night in Port-of-Spain, pictures of the killings were casually being passed around via BlackBerry Messenger. “The failed management model that governs the public delivery of service to our citizens is obviously at the core of our inability to deliver the required security services that would apprehend and prosecute the gunmen,” the release stated.

“Without these arrests are we not stimulating these gunmen to continue shooting so many of their fellow citizens at point-blank range? “We remember forever the prophetic call of Lloyd Best that every society requires the involvement of a ‘responsible elite’ and we hope and pray that this call will be answered in the shortest possible time on behalf of the valuable lives being lost and on behalf of future generations of our potentially great nation.”

For Aboud, that “responsible elite” consists of academia, merchants and senior business executives. There is silence, the release said, possibly because the public has become desensitised to the killings but it said, “this may be difficult to accept when we consider that there may be a contrast in reactions if these dead bodies were being found in quarters closer to the areas in which our elites reside.”

Aboud believes that the accountability model will allow for the development of the Police Service. “Once we start promoting and elevating those officers that have made the arrests and getting the convictions we will start seeing a new super cadre of police people from the very ranks that now exists.” He said any new initiative that newly-appointed Minister of National Security Jack Warner implements must include accountability if the Government is to see any positive results.