Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Mar­vin Gon­za­les is ques­tion­ing whether the Gov­ern­ment de­lib­er­ate­ly al­lowed the col­lapse of the pro­posed ZOSO leg­is­la­tion so it could lat­er use its de­feat as an ex­cuse for fail­ing to curb ris­ing crime.

Speak­ing at a me­dia brief­ing at the Of­fice of the Op­po­si­tion Leader on Charles Street, Port of Spain, on Wednes­day, Gon­za­les sug­gest­ed that the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the bill’s fail­ure raise se­ri­ous con­cerns.

“It leaves one to won­der whether the Gov­ern­ment in­tend­ed for the ZOSO bill to fail from the on­set so that they can use its fail­ure to jus­ti­fy its in­abil­i­ty to solve crime and crim­i­nal­i­ty in Trinidad and To­ba­go. I say it again, it leaves the rea­son­able mind to won­der whether the Gov­ern­ment in­tend­ed the fail­ure, the de­lib­er­ate fail­ure of the ZOSO bill, so that they can use this as some ex­cuse, their ex­cuse, to not con­tain crime and crim­i­nal­i­ty in Trinidad and To­ba­go,” Gon­za­les said.

His com­ments come in re­sponse to re­cent state­ments by Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Roger Alexan­der, who ac­cused the Op­po­si­tion of fail­ing to sup­port the leg­is­la­tion. The Gov­ern­ment had ar­gued that the bill would have pro­vid­ed en­hanced pow­ers to se­cu­ri­ty forces in des­ig­nat­ed high crime ar­eas and could have helped stem the cur­rent uptick in vi­o­lent crime.

Dur­ing a re­cent in­ter­view, Alexan­der de­fend­ed the pro­posed law and crit­i­cised those who vot­ed against it.

“They al­ways ask about our crime plan, but when we put some­thing for­ward, it is not sup­port­ed by the Op­po­si­tion or oth­ers. They should ask res­i­dents in the com­mu­ni­ties they rep­re­sent whether they want­ed this type of law en­force­ment pres­ence. Peo­ple con­tin­ue to miss out on what could have been a per­fect op­por­tu­ni­ty to change things,” Alexan­der said.

How­ev­er, Gon­za­les con­tend­ed that the Gov­ern­ment it­self un­der­mined the bill by re­ject­ing pro­posed amend­ments that may have se­cured broad­er back­ing in the Sen­ate.

“You have to ask your­self whether the Gov­ern­ment re­al­ly in­tend­ed to get the sup­port to pass this very crit­i­cal piece of leg­is­la­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go so that they can do what they ex­pect­ed un­der this bill. Dur­ing the de­bate in the Sen­ate, the In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors cir­cu­lat­ed a num­ber of amend­ments demon­strat­ing their abil­i­ty and their will­ing­ness to sup­port the Gov­ern­ment with crit­i­cal amend­ments to im­prove the bill, to im­prove the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the bill, to en­sure that there’s ap­pro­pri­ate con­sti­tu­tion­al over­sight. And the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al re­fused all amend­ments, in­clud­ing amend­ments passed by the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment un­der Sen­a­tor Browne and Sen­a­tor Faris Al-Rawi.”

Gon­za­les ar­gued that had those amend­ments been ac­cept­ed, the out­come could have been dif­fer­ent.

He fur­ther ac­cused Alexan­der, and by ex­ten­sion the Gov­ern­ment, of be­ing un­pre­pared to ad­dress na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty chal­lenges.

“They are not pre­pared to deal with it and he is un­pre­pared to deal with it. And as a mat­ter of fact, his low­est hang­ing fruit and most con­ve­nient ex­cuse right now is that for every mur­der that takes place in Trinidad and To­ba­go, every mur­der that takes place in Trinidad and To­ba­go is se­ri­ous crime, blame the col­lapse of the ZOSO bill on In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors and the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment and some­how the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go will give them a pass. It is not go­ing to hap­pen.”

Gon­za­les al­so crit­i­cised Alexan­der’s con­duct in Par­lia­ment, sug­gest­ing the min­is­ter had un­der­es­ti­mat­ed the grav­i­ty of his port­fo­lio.

“Min­is­ter Alexan­der must come to us and come to the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go be­cause he be­lieved that his min­is­te­r­i­al port­fo­lio would just in­volve en­gag­ing in fool­ish­ness in front of the Par­lia­ment, blow­ing in a plas­tic bag and en­gag­ing in all kinds of con­duct un­be­com­ing of a min­is­ter, not re­al­is­ing that the day is go­ing to come where he has to give an ac­count of his min­is­te­r­i­al ac­com­plish­ment,” Gon­za­les said.

The ZOSO bill re­quired a spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty to pass but failed to se­cure suf­fi­cient sup­port in the Sen­ate.