Lead­ers of the coun­try’s ma­jor busi­ness groups say they are in full sup­port of the State of Emer­gency, which was de­clared yes­ter­day. They say they are an­tic­i­pat­ing min­i­mal dis­rup­tions to com­mer­cial ac­tiv­i­ty.

Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce pres­i­dent, Son­ji Pierre-Chase, said it was a good move that the cur­rent SoE does not re­strict the move­ment of cit­i­zens and al­lows busi­ness­es to con­tin­ue op­er­at­ing as nor­mal.

In a state­ment is­sued yes­ter­day, she said this will help to main­tain eco­nom­ic sta­bil­i­ty dur­ing the time the SoE is in ef­fect. So far, there has been no word from the Gov­ern­ment or the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice on how long the SoE would be in ef­fect. But while the TT Cham­ber is giv­ing the SoE its back­ing, it cau­tions about the need for sus­tained mea­sures to deal with crime.

“While the SoE is an es­sen­tial short-term step, it must be sup­port­ed by com­pre­hen­sive and sus­tain­able strate­gies to elim­i­nate the root caus­es of crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties. We urge the au­thor­i­ties to con­tin­ue to strength­en se­cu­ri­ty pro­to­cols with­in cor­rec­tion­al fa­cil­i­ties, en­force ac­count­abil­i­ty to pre­vent in­ter­nal col­lu­sion, and im­ple­ment long-term crime re­duc­tion ini­tia­tives,” Pierre-Chase out­lined.

The Greater Tu­na­puna Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce, which is al­so sup­port­ing the SOE, said it’s pleased that no cur­few was im­posed. It al­so urged all busi­ness­es and cit­i­zens to re­main vig­i­lant and co­op­er­ate ful­ly with law en­force­ment as these op­er­a­tions un­fold.

“As a busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, we are par­tic­u­lar­ly mind­ful of the im­por­tance of na­tion­al sta­bil­i­ty in pre­serv­ing in­vestor con­fi­dence, eco­nom­ic con­ti­nu­ity, and pub­lic morale. We urge the Gov­ern­ment to con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing time­ly and trans­par­ent up­dates and to en­sure that the rights of law-abid­ing cit­i­zens are pro­tect­ed through­out emer­gency pow­ers,” the cham­ber de­tailed.

Giv­ing a dif­fer­ent per­spec­tive, the T&T Coali­tion of Ser­vices In­dus­tries (TTC­SI) not­ed that while a State of Emer­gency may be nec­es­sary to ad­dress what may be clas­si­fied as im­me­di­ate crises, it was cru­cial to ac­knowl­edge the po­ten­tial eco­nom­ic chal­lenges and mit­i­gate their neg­a­tive im­pacts.

The or­gan­i­sa­tion said care­ful plan­ning, trans­par­ent gov­er­nance, and tar­get­ed sup­port for the vul­ner­a­ble are es­sen­tial to min­imise the long-term eco­nom­ic con­se­quences of a State of Emer­gency.

The TTC­SI added that it looks for­ward to rea­son­able en­force­ment of the emer­gency pow­ers dur­ing this time and that law-abid­ing mem­bers and cit­i­zens are not sub­ject­ed to un­due hard­ships as they pur­sue their le­git­i­mate busi­ness.

Oth­er stake­hold­ers want ‘pos­i­tive re­sults’

Mean­while, the pres­i­dent of the Greater San Fer­nan­do Cham­ber, Ki­ran Singh, said the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty awaits the pos­i­tive re­sults of this lat­est ac­tion to stamp out crime and the or­gan­ised syn­di­cate as it is be­ing de­scribed.

How­ev­er, the cham­ber pres­i­dent said he does not think the move would have a neg­a­tive im­pact on busi­ness ac­tiv­i­ty, as the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice was quite clear there would be no cur­few.

“The pub­lic is free to move about with their busi­ness, work, and leisure­ly ac­tiv­i­ties. We re­mind the pub­lic that the army will now have pow­ers of ar­rest,” he stat­ed.

The Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber of Com­merce said the pri­vate sec­tor has a vest­ed in­ter­est in the safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of the na­tion. Pres­i­dent of the cham­ber, Bal­dath Ma­haraj, said crime and the in­fil­tra­tion of le­git­i­mate sys­tems by crim­i­nal net­works rep­re­sent a grow­ing chal­lenge to eco­nom­ic con­fi­dence and in­vest­ment.  

Ma­haraj said the cham­ber ap­plaud­ed the move to dis­man­tle these crim­i­nal op­er­a­tions through ro­bust, co­or­di­nat­ed in­ter­a­gency re­spons­es. 

Vice chair­man of the Con­fed­er­a­tion of Re­gion­al Busi­ness Cham­bers, Ri­car­do Mo­hammed, added that crime has al­ways been con­cern­ing to busi­ness­men and mem­bers of the wider pub­lic.

Most times, he said, the tar­gets are mem­bers of the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, whether their busi­ness­es are thriv­ing or not.

“With­in re­cent years, the mem­bers of var­i­ous busi­ness cham­bers and stake­hold­ers have had many con­sul­ta­tions with the pre­vi­ous gov­ern­ment, which have brought no re­lief in the crime sit­u­a­tion. Vi­o­lent crimes and home in­va­sions have now reached a point where the cit­i­zens are high­ly stressed. (The) pre­vi­ous SoE has yield­ed poor re­sults, with no sign of im­prove­ments in the fight against crime,” Mo­hammed lament­ed.

“Based on what has been high­light­ed on so­cial me­dia, this SoE must yield the re­sults to in­spire a lit­tle con­fi­dence and hope to the cit­i­zens of T&T,” Mo­hammed stressed.

Fyz­abad Cham­ber of Com­merce pres­i­dent, An­jie Jairam, when con­tact­ed, said that the con­tin­u­a­tion of ex­treme crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties can­not be ben­e­fi­cial to the sta­bil­i­ty of the coun­try. She said that dras­tic in­ter­ven­tion is re­quired to ad­dress the prob­lem.

“We trust that the Com­mis­sion­er, with his team and Gov­ern­ment sup­port, will help to ef­fec­tive­ly rid this sit­u­a­tion and bring sta­bil­i­ty to our coun­try. We cer­tain­ly sup­port any se­ri­ous ac­tion to al­le­vi­ate crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties in our coun­try.

And the Cou­va Point Lisas Cham­ber of Com­merce pres­i­dent, De­o­raj Ma­hase, said the safe­ty of this coun­try is of para­mount im­por­tance. He urged cit­i­zens to re­main vig­i­lant and fol­low guide­lines is­sued by the po­lice ser­vice dur­ing the SoE.

Yes­ter­day, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice, led by Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro, an­nounced that the SoE was de­clared af­ter an or­gan­ised crime syn­di­cate was dis­cov­ered in­side and out­side the prison. He said the crim­i­nals were tar­get­ing ju­di­cial and gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials and posed a na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty threat.