Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has crit­i­cised Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar over the Gov­ern­ment’s han­dling of the coun­try’s crime sit­u­a­tion, de­scrib­ing it as a na­tion­al lead­er­ship cri­sis.

In a me­dia re­lease, the Op­po­si­tion Leader ac­cused the Prime Min­is­ter of at­tempt­ing to down­play the sever­i­ty of re­cent in­ci­dents, and of dis­tanc­ing her­self from re­spon­si­bil­i­ty at a time when the coun­try is grap­pling with what she [Beck­les] de­scribed as a wors­en­ing crime sit­u­a­tion.

Beck­les said the Prime Min­is­ter had failed to recog­nise the “hurt and pain of the na­tion” fol­low­ing a se­ries of vi­o­lent in­ci­dents, in­clud­ing the killing of a po­lice of­fi­cer, the theft of firearms from a mu­nic­i­pal po­lice sta­tion, re­ports of il­le­gal buri­als in­volv­ing chil­dren, and the death of a young girl in La­dy Young Road.

She ar­gued that the killing of a po­lice of­fi­cer and the re­port­ed theft of more than 60 firearms from a mu­nic­i­pal po­lice sta­tion could not be treat­ed as a mu­nic­i­pal is­sue but in­stead rep­re­sent­ed a na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty is­sue.

Beck­les al­so took is­sue with what she de­scribed as the Prime Min­is­ter’s at­tempt to dis­tin­guish be­tween the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice and Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice, say­ing such a po­si­tion amount­ed to de­flec­tion at a time when the pub­lic is de­mand­ing ac­count­abil­i­ty.

Ac­cord­ing to the Op­po­si­tion Leader, the in­ci­dents point­ed to a se­ri­ous break­down in se­cu­ri­ty and main­tained that na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty re­mains the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the State.

“The coun­try does not need tech­ni­cal ex­pla­na­tions or de­flec­tions. It needs an­swers, ac­tion, and a clear plan to re­cov­er all of these weapons and pro­tect cit­i­zens,” Beck­les said.

She fur­ther ac­cused the Prime Min­is­ter of ab­di­cat­ing re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and at­tempt­ing to shift blame. She called on the Gov­ern­ment to take im­me­di­ate re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the es­ca­lat­ing crime sit­u­a­tion and present a cred­i­ble strat­e­gy to ad­dress it.

Beck­les ques­tioned the Gov­ern­ment’s re­sponse in the face of what she de­scribed as na­tion­al mourn­ing, point­ing to the death of a child, the killing of a po­lice of­fi­cer, re­ports of il­le­gal buri­als, and miss­ing firearms.

The Op­po­si­tion Leader said the Prime Min­is­ter had failed to pro­vide the lead­er­ship re­quired, ac­cus­ing her of choos­ing dis­trac­tion over di­rect­ly ad­dress­ing the is­sues af­fect­ing the coun­try.