Raphael John-Lall

Last week, the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Gov­ern­ment cel­e­brat­ed its first 100 days in of­fice.

While 100 days is not a long time, se­nior mem­bers of the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty are hop­ing that the Gov­ern­ment’s an­ti-crime ini­tia­tives con­tin­ue to bear re­sults.

Bu crime news fea­tur­ing busi­ness­es un­der at­tack still grab the news head­lines.

Just last week­end, a se­cu­ri­ty guard was stabbed at a pop­u­lar fast food restau­rant in To­ba­go. In Ju­ly, a Freeport man was robbed at gun­point while at­tempt­ing to make a de­posit at a Sco­tia­bank ATM in Port-of-Spain.

The larg­er busi­ness con­glom­er­ates have not es­caped ei­ther as in Ju­ly, Massy Stores con­firmed that a rob­bery took place at its Mar­aval branch be­fore open­ing hours.

Pres­i­dent of the Own­ers Deal­ers As­so­ci­a­tion, Reval Chat­ter­goon told the Busi­ness Guardian that the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) and oth­er state agen­cies re­spon­si­ble for deal­ing with crime and se­cu­ri­ty should all be man­aged as busi­ness­es in the pri­vate sec­tor.

“We have seen a num­ber of po­lice shoot­ings which means they are tak­ing the fight to the crim­i­nals. But it is about hold­ing peo­ple ac­count­able. In any busi­ness en­vi­ron­ment what is your rate of re­turn on your as­sets? So, there are 100 ve­hi­cles they would have got­ten re­cent­ly. How has that im­pact­ed crime? It is about us­ing all your tools. It is about time, our polic­ing is run as a busi­ness. In this way, growth or lack of can be mea­sured. There is no fix quick.”

He said al­though they have not seen a sub­stan­tial de­crease in crime, they re­main hope­ful that be­lea­guered busi­ness­es will see a pos­i­tive out­come.

“Our mem­bers have cer­tain­ly not seen any de­crease in crime, more so you might have seen an in­crease in some cas­es. See­ing that Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Roger Alexan­der was part of the TTPS in his part em­ploy­ment, we hope that we would have seen a more ag­gres­sive ap­proach in terms of curb­ing the crime. There is a new Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and we are see­ing some ef­forts but we are not see­ing the re­wards for the ef­forts just yet. We are hope­ful that the crime is curbed.”

Pres­i­dent of the T&T Coali­tion of Ser­vices In­dus­tries (TTC­SI) Di­anne Joseph told the Busi­ness Guardian that a re­view of the last 100 days of the new Gov­ern­ment in of­fice has shown good promise.

“From the stand­point of crime and busi­ness­es, we are of the opin­ion that the Gov­ern­ment has been tak­ing ad­mirable steps to con­trol the sit­u­a­tion. How­ev­er, giv­en the longevi­ty and na­ture of the prob­lem, it is rea­son­able to con­clude that full erad­i­ca­tion can­not be achieved in just 100 days.”

She spoke about the im­pact on busi­ness­es.

“Cit­i­zens are left to won­der what else they may be able to pur­sue in an ef­fort to pro­tect them­selves and their fam­i­lies. Busi­ness own­ers are chal­lenged be­cause they are re­quired to close ear­li­er, hire ad­di­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty per­son­nel and in some in­stances in­crease in­sur­ance cov­er­age and se­cu­ri­ty sys­tems.”

Fi­nal­ly, she hopes that the Gov­ern­ment keeps its promis­es to give the TTPS the re­sources that it needs.

“We look for­ward to the promise of the stand-your-ground leg­is­la­tion, the in­crease in the mu­nic­i­pal po­lice com­ple­ment, the re­ac­ti­va­tion of com­mu­ni­ty com­fort pa­trols, strength­en­ing of the high­way pa­trol unit, a ful­ly staffed E999 emer­gency call cen­tre, up­grad­ed po­lice fleet with fit-for-pur­pose ve­hi­cles, the in­stal­la­tion of CCTV cam­eras and se­cu­ri­ty bill­boards na­tion­wide and the im­prove­ment and ef­fi­cien­cy in the sys­tem rel­a­tive to the ap­pli­ca­tion for firearms.”

Re­duc­tion in crime

Pres­i­dent of the Ch­agua­nas Busi­ness Cham­ber, Bal­dath Ma­haraj told the Busi­ness Guardian that af­ter 100 days in of­fice, they are start­ing to see re­sults from the Gov­ern­ment in the area of crime fight­ing.

“In the 100 days since the new Gov­ern­ment took of­fice, we have seen a clear in­crease in po­lice vis­i­bil­i­ty across Ch­agua­nas and Cen­tral Trinidad. This has giv­en many of our mem­bers a gen­uine sense that the au­thor­i­ties are tack­ling crime.”

He said ear­ly fig­ures are show­ing progress. For the first half of 2025, there have been 214 mur­ders com­pared to 325 in the same pe­ri­od of 2024—a re­duc­tion of about 34 per cent.

“This comes af­ter last year’s trou­bling fig­ure of 624 mur­ders, one of the high­est on record. While it is still ear­ly days, these num­bers, com­bined with the stronger po­lice pres­ence, in­di­cate that ef­forts to curb vi­o­lent crime are gain­ing trac­tion.”

He said im­por­tant­ly, the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty is al­so see­ing the in­tro­duc­tion of crit­i­cal leg­is­la­tion aimed at im­prov­ing se­cu­ri­ty, which, if im­ple­ment­ed ef­fec­tive­ly, will go a long way in mak­ing us feel safer.

“Just last week, the Cham­ber host­ed a break­fast meet­ing at­tend­ed by the Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty, the Min­is­ter of Le­gal Af­fairs, and the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, where busi­ness own­ers were di­rect­ly up­dat­ed on crime-fight­ing ini­tia­tives and leg­isla­tive changes. The fight against crime is far from over, but busi­ness­men and women in Ch­agua­nas are recog­nis­ing the ef­fort be­ing made and are hope­ful that these mea­sures will bring last­ing change.”

Pres­i­dent, Greater San Fer­nan­do Area Cham­ber of Com­merce, Ki­ran Singh told Sun­day Busi­ness Guardian that the sta­tis­tics re­veal a re­duc­tion in crime over the last three months.

“The gov­ern­ment im­ple­ment­ed the State of Emer­gency (SOE) as a tool to as­sist in crime erad­i­ca­tion. Com­pared to last year’s fig­ures, the mur­der rate has dropped. We would like it to be much low­er, of course, ze­ro be­ing the ide­al num­ber. Se­ri­ous crime and home in­va­sions un­for­tu­nate­ly are still ev­i­dent but again at low­er per­cent­ages.”

He said if crime is left unchecked, busi­ness will be neg­a­tive­ly af­fect­ed.

“The gov­ern­ment’s pro-ac­tive ap­proach to ag­gres­sive­ly deal with the crim­i­nals should send a sig­nal that they abide by the law or face the con­se­quences of the law. We can’t al­low a few mis­cre­ants to hold the coun­try to ran­som.”

Pres­i­dent of the Siparia Busi­ness Cham­ber, Em­mer­son Ched­die said, in re­sponse to ris­ing con­cerns about crime, the Gov­ern­ment has tak­en “de­ci­sive steps” in­clud­ing the ap­point­ment of a new Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er and the im­ple­men­ta­tion of a State of Emer­gency.

Ched­die re­ferred to crim­i­nol­o­gist Dr Randy Seep­er­sad who he said has ac­knowl­edged the Gov­ern­ment’s crime-fight­ing mea­sures as rea­son­able and in­dica­tive of a se­ri­ous com­mit­ment to pub­lic safe­ty.

Lull in crime

Crim­i­nol­o­gist Dau­rius Figueira told Sun­day Busi­ness Guardian that com­pared to the “blood­let­ting” of 2017 to 2024 the UNC gov­ern­ment is en­joy­ing a marked lull in the vi­o­lence, seen in a mur­der toll as at Au­gust 2025 that points to a fi­nal tal­ly of, at its high­est, just over 300 vic­tims.

“In such an en­vi­ron­ment with space to ma­noeu­vre, the new gov­ern­ment should now ex­ploit this space to un­der­take deep seat­ed, fo­cussed in­ter­ven­tions to re­form the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus there­by eras­ing all the dys­func­tions that re­tard its ef­fec­tive­ness high­light­ed dur­ing the bloody years of 2017 to 2024. Dur­ing the first 100 days we have had no sig­nalling of this in­ten­tion as much po­lit­i­cal cap­i­tal is be­ing ex­pend­ed on stand-your-ground leg­is­la­tion whilst the grave press­ing is­sues of the ef­fec­tive­ness of our na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus in the third decade of the 21st cen­tu­ry is not a press­ing is­sue.”

He then spoke about how crime adds to oth­er se­ri­ous prob­lems that af­flict the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty.

“The busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty must now face a mul­ti­plic­i­ty of chal­lenges from the land­scape of crim­i­nal­i­ty, to tar­iffs on ex­ports, a busi­ness mod­el premised on buy­ing Chi­nese goods from the USA for sale in T&T with the ever-present threat of tar­iff wars be­tween the USA and Chi­na, to a marked con­trac­tion in de­mand and forex short­falls.”