PE­TER CHRISTO­PHER

pe­ter.christo­pher@guardian.co.tt

There will be no ex­ten­sion of the An­ti-Gang Bill at this time.

Fol­low­ing a de­bate which spanned just over three hours and a brief com­mit­tee stage, the mo­tion to ex­tend the leg­is­la­tion was de­feat­ed af­ter all 19 Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress MPs ab­stained from the vote in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives yes­ter­day.

De­spite all 20 present Gov­ern­ment MPs vot­ing for the ex­ten­sion, it was de­feat­ed be­cause it re­quired a spe­cial three-fifths ma­jor­i­ty.

Short­ly af­ter the mo­tion was de­feat­ed, Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith said the coun­try had once again fall­en vic­tim to “pet­ty pol­i­tics.”

“Un­for­tu­nate­ly, pet­ty pol­i­tics yet again takes prece­dence over do­ing what is right for the coun­try,” Grif­fith said.

“We just ar­rest­ed a ma­jor per­son of in­ter­est in­volved in gang ac­tiv­i­ty. Over 70 in the last few years. It was a ma­jor de­ter­rent that con­tributed to over 115 less mur­ders this year com­pared to the same pe­ri­od last year.

“It seems that this bill was an is­sue for some politi­cians. Heav­en for­bid, if and when gang-re­lat­ed mur­ders in­crease, I hope that those who re­ject­ed the bill would be pre­pared to an­swer to their God and the cit­i­zens of this coun­try.”

It is the sec­ond time in the last five years that the An­ti-Gang leg­is­la­tion had failed to get the Op­po­si­tion sup­port for an ex­ten­sion.

In 2016, the Op­po­si­tion al­so opt­ed not to sup­port an ex­ten­sion of the 2011 ver­sion of the bill, which had been passed by the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship. The leg­is­la­tion re­turned to the Par­lia­ment in March 2018 with some ad­just­ments, most no­tably the re­duc­tion of the sun­set clause from five years to 30 months. It was sup­port­ed then, as Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar stat­ed it was in the best in­ter­est of the peo­ple.

Through­out yes­ter­day’s de­bate, Op­po­si­tion MPs ar­gued that the leg­is­la­tion had lit­tle im­pact on the state of crime in the coun­try with Na­pari­ma MP Rod­ney Charles claim­ing the re­duc­tion in homi­cides this year had more to do with the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic and re­lat­ed re­stric­tions than the leg­is­la­tion.

“The At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, on the oth­er hand, would have us be­lieve that re­duc­tion in mur­ders was due to the An­ti-Gang Act and not be­cause of COVID re­stric­tions. Cities the world over have record­ed a dras­tic re­duc­tion in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty dur­ing the glob­al pan­dem­ic,” said Charles, who cit­ed the re­duc­tion of mur­ders in the St James parish in Ja­maica and the Amer­i­can city of St Louis, Mis­souri, as ex­am­ples.

But At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi point­ed out that the two ex­am­ples had been sub­ject to state of emer­gen­cies, which this coun­try did not im­ple­ment.

Charles ar­gued that the leg­is­la­tion would on­ly serve to in­fringe up­on the rights of poor cit­i­zens, as it could be eas­i­ly abused by the po­lice.

San Juan/Barataria MP Sad­dam Ho­sein mean­while ques­tioned the ac­tu­al im­pact of the bill, not­ing gang ac­tiv­i­ty and gang-re­lat­ed mur­ders had still oc­curred de­spite the law.

To this point, Port-of-Spain South MP Kei­th Scot­land said their ex­am­ples on­ly re­in­forced the need for the bill.

“What the ho­n­ourable mem­bers for Barataria and Na­pari­ma in both their speech­es, said is that there is a se­ri­ous gang prob­lem in Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he said.

Al-Rawi ex­pressed his be­muse­ment at the stance of the Op­po­si­tion MPs Charles’ re­sponse, ques­tion­ing how he could claim the Gov­ern­ment had no suc­cess with the law, “notwith­stand­ing” the sta­tis­tics.

“It can­not be in­signif­i­cant to say in 2018 there was some 2,400 gang mem­bers re­put­ed to be gang mem­bers and in 2020 the in­tel­li­gence comes to be 1,014, be­ing a 57% per cent de­crease in gang mem­ber­ship,” said Al-Rawi, who ex­plained that the law, based on these sta­tis­tics, had some ef­fect in sup­press­ing gang ac­tiv­i­ty, which was the leg­is­la­tion’s in­ten­tion.

Fol­low­ing the vote, the AG said the Op­po­si­tion’s stance, which he said they had held since 2016 and on­ly re­lent­ed due to pres­sure from the pub­lic in 2018, would make crime-fight­ing in Trinidad and To­ba­go more dif­fi­cult.

Camille urges Kam­la to put T&T first

Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness Camille Robin­son-Reg­is last night con­demned the ir­re­spon­si­ble be­hav­iour of the UNC in fail­ing to sup­port the con­tin­u­a­tion of the An­ti-Gang Act.

“As the Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness in the House, I rep­re­sent the unit­ed views of my col­leagues that this neg­li­gent act by the Op­po­si­tion can have dis­as­trous ef­fects on the on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions against per­sons in­volved in gang ac­tiv­i­ty and the na­tion at large,” Robin­son-Reg­is said.

She said the Op­po­si­tion had again shown its dis­dain for the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go by ab­stain­ing from yet an­oth­er vote.

The Op­po­si­tion first brought the bill to Par­lia­ment in 2011 when in gov­er­nance and it was sup­port­ed by the then PNM op­po­si­tion. It was a bill that they once deemed ‘cru­cial’, ‘nec­es­sary’ for the fight against crime. De­spite re­cent pleas from the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, the Op­po­si­tion de­cid­ed to de­ride what they once hailed as one of the so­lu­tions against crime.”

She said Per­sad-Bisses­sar had “made a guest ap­pear­ance to over­see the mock­ery she en­cour­ages in the House by ab­stain­ing from a Bill that was al­ready passed twice be­fore.”

“In 2011 the same Op­po­si­tion leader called for bi­par­ti­san co­op­er­a­tion and a ‘whole gov­ern­ment ap­proach’. Yet to­day, she sat in stony si­lence when the bill was sent to com­mit­tee. The lack of moral com­pass and this in­ef­fec­tu­al, rud­der­less Op­po­si­tion is once more di­rect­ly af­fect­ing the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go. It is an­oth­er bla­tant at­tempt by the un­pa­tri­ot­ic Op­po­si­tion to make our coun­try un­govern­able. The UNC on­ly sup­ports laws against crime when the pub­lic pres­sures them to do right by the coun­try.”

She said the record will show that the UNC does not sup­port ma­jor­i­ty leg­is­la­tion, es­pe­cial­ly when it is re­lat­ed to crime, un­less it is pres­sured by the pub­lic.

“Un­like the Op­po­si­tion, we take our du­ty very se­ri­ous­ly, we de­mand that the UNC serve the na­tion, not just them­selves or their cronies. It is un­for­giv­able er­rant MPs choose to hold our coun­try to hostage by ab­stain­ing with­out re­morse and be­ing con­sis­tent­ly un­pa­tri­ot­ic. The Op­po­si­tion needs to do right by the na­tion and put aside pet­ty agen­das and for once put our coun­try first.”