An­na-Lisa Paul

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad Bisses­sar says her gov­ern­ment has tak­en the lead in cre­at­ing ad­di­tion­al em­ploy­ment to ease the frus­tra­tion of the less for­tu­nate through sev­er­al in­vest­ment projects set to take off in the new year. Per­sad-Bisses­sar made the an­nounce­ment yes­ter­day af­ter field­ing ques­tions from re­porters about the Gov­ern­ment's fight against crime, dur­ing her Christ­mas treat for chil­dren at the Jean Pierre Com­plex, Port-of-Spain.

It fol­lowed protest ac­tion by Beetham res­i­dents who blocked the Beetham High­way and burned de­bris to high­light their frus­tra­tion over high un­em­ploy­ment in their com­mu­ni­ty. "Pri­or­i­ty one is crime and pri­or­i­ty two is with re­spect to the econ­o­my and adding jobs,"?Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

"Once we do that, we can get a bet­ter qual­i­ty of life for all, which is what our whole thrust and theme has been, pros­per­i­ty for all. You have seen some ini­tia­tives with in­vest­ment that are poised for take off in 2013 and the ac­tu­al im­ple­men­ta­tion is set to be­gin." The Prime Min­is­ter promised that 2013 would be "brighter one than 2012."

Clad in a red skirt suit com­plete with a San­ta Claus hat, Per­sad-Bisses­sar ar­rived at around 3 pm and spent the bet­ter part of an hour greet­ing mem­bers of the pub­lic and dis­trib­ut­ing presents to some of the thou­sands of chil­dren at the venue. Along­side her were Food Pro­duc­tion Min­is­ter De­vant Ma­haraj, Works Min­is­ter Em­manuel George, Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Fazal Karim and Min­is­ter of the Peo­ple and So­cial De­vel­op­ment Dr Glenn Ra­mad­hars­ingh.

Al­so at the an­nu­al treat, which was in­tro­duced un­der the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship regime in 2010, was Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er who com­ment­ed that the protests by Beetham res­i­dents in­volved a hand­ful of peo­ple. He warned that the heavy hand of the law would be used to en­sure law and or­der. "That is on­ly a fringe el­e­ment...that is not the norm for Beetham Gar­dens and the po­lice are deal­ing with that," he said.

Warn­er, along with Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Su­ruj Ram­bachan, Chief of De­fence Staff Brigadier Ken­rick Ma­haraj and act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Stephen Williams toured Beetham Gar­dens yes­ter­day morn­ing and met with the res­i­dents. "We were there talk­ing to them and giv­ing them the as­sur­ance of jobs and so on, and I don't see a prob­lem re­al­ly," Warn­er said.

"One or two are on the fringe el­e­ment and we shall deal with that when the time comes...The po­lice are well pre­pared to deal with any dis­or­der that takes place." Asked if he was con­fi­dent that the is­sue had been re­solved, Warn­er replied: "The po­lice have as­sured me and that is enough for me."

Asked if they were con­cerned about the num­ber of protests tak­ing place across the coun­try by peo­ple de­mand­ing bet­ter in­fra­struc­ture and jobs, he said: "What you are see­ing is democ­ra­cy at work. "As long as what­ev­er they do is with­in the law, we have no prob­lem with that and once they do it with­in the law, it is okay and up to now, by and large, we have had no com­plaints," he added.

Re­spond­ing to claims from Laven­tille MPs that they were un­aware of the Gov­ern­ment's plans for the area, Warn­er said: "All they have to do is ask. I am not aware they have asked. I am aware that they are very crit­i­cal of what's be­ing done but all they have to do is ask and I will tell them. It must be done based on our col­lec­tive ef­fort and if they be­lieve their role is just to crit­i­cise, then fine. But I am say­ing there is open door there and all they have to do is ask."

Per­sad Bisses­sar said while crime re­mained a pri­or­i­ty on her ad­min­is­tra­tion's agen­da, they had to fight it us­ing a mul­ti-pronged ap­proach through con­vic­tion and re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion meth­ods. "I be­lieve there is one el­e­ment we must strength­en and that is the law en­force­ment as­pect and Mr Warn­er has be­gun that strat­e­gy with the joint pa­trols," she said.

"We in­tend to con­tin­ue with those right down in­to Car­ni­val and there are oth­er strate­gies that are be­ing em­ployed. We need to strength­en the law en­force­ment as­pect and that is the on­ly way we will re­al­ly see the kind of re­duc­tion in the crime rate that we want."

In­formed of a re­cent trav­el ad­vi­so­ry from Britain in which hot spots in Trinidad were cit­ed, Warn­er said: "This is not the first time they have done that and I am quite sure it may not be the last, but our aim is to make sure that this hap­pens less and less and based on the ef­forts we are mak­ing right now, I feel very op­ti­mistic that this shall be a thing of the past."