Gail Alexan­der

The hands are up!

Lead­ers of busi­ness cham­bers across T&T have ex­pressed in­ter­est in par­tic­i­pat­ing in and con­tribut­ing to the up­com­ing an­ti-crime talks be­tween the Gov­ern­ment and the Op­po­si­tion.

On Tues­day, Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar rec­om­mend­ed to Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley that the dis­cus­sions be ex­pand­ed to in­clude oth­er stake­hold­ers. She made the sug­ges­tion in re­sponse to Row­ley’s Sep­tem­ber 16 let­ter invit­ing her to talks in­volv­ing four-mem­ber teams each from Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion.

Row­ley said the talks will be held af­ter up­com­ing Bud­get ac­tiv­i­ties but didn’t com­ment on Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s call for more stake­hold­ers.

Yes­ter­day, T&T Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Roger Roach said, “The TTMA is will­ing to meet and work with all stake­hold­ers in the fight against crime and vi­o­lence in T&T. Our mem­bers live, work and in­vest here- we want the best for our coun­try. We hope the dis­cus­sions be­tween Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion are pos­i­tive and lead to tan­gi­ble poli­cies and so­lu­tions to this scourge fac­ing our beau­ti­ful is­lands.”

Greater San Fer­nan­do Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce pres­i­dent Ki­ran Singh said the or­gan­i­sa­tion strong­ly be­lieves the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty should have ap­pro­pri­ate rep­re­sen­ta­tion at the dis­cus­sions.

“The busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty has been suf­fer­ing at the hands of crim­i­nals as their main tar­get, from places of op­er­a­tion, to banks and homes. We’re in a po­si­tion to in­form dis­cus­sions in a very mean­ing­ful way. We need this op­por­tu­ni­ty to as­sist in so­lu­tion-gen­er­at­ed dis­cus­sions on the way for­ward to stamp­ing out crim­i­nal­i­ty,” he said.

“And if the Lar­ce­ny Act, Bail Amend­ment Act, An­ti-Gang Act, Death Penal­ty and oth­er laws need amend­ments, then par­lia­men­tar­i­ans must do just that.”

Singh added: “In­for­ma­tion reach­ing us is that San Fer­nan­do has for­tu­nate­ly not had the ex­pe­ri­ence of ex­tor­tion tac­tics by what ap­pears to be gang-re­lat­ed ac­tiv­i­ty, but crime mi­gra­tion is a re­al­i­ty. We def­i­nite­ly don’t want San Fer­nan­do to be­come part of that dead­ly sta­tis­tic. My sin­cere wish is that Gov­ern­ment and the TTPS (T&T Po­lice Ser­vice) in­ter­vene with alacrity and halt this. It’s bad for busi­ness, bad for our peo­ple and bad for our im­age.”

Singh said he is so far heart­ened that re­cent po­lice busts are show­ing a plan is be­ing im­ple­ment­ed, the re­sults of which he hopes will as­sist in pre­vent­ing fur­ther pain and an­guish.

Greater Tu­na­puna Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce pres­i­dent Ra­mon Gre­go­rio said: ”Our Cham­ber has stat­ed there should be more pub­lic-pri­vate par­tic­i­pa­tion in deal­ing with crime. All hands on deck. Our area has been un­der siege with the most heinous crime in Trinidad and To­ba­go, in­clud­ing gang ac­tiv­i­ty. We’re now us­ing in­no­v­a­tive so­lu­tions, in­clud­ing de­vices to alert po­lice when busi­ness­es are hit.

“If we com­bine in­no­v­a­tive ef­forts with ro­bust cam­era sys­tems and ap­pro­pri­ate leg­is­la­tion, we can dent this sit­u­a­tion that’s threat­en­ing every­one’s very ex­is­tence.

“We need the Bail Bill back tar­get­ing re­peat of­fend­ers strong­ly enough to dri­ve home the mes­sage to de­sist from crime and we need unan­i­mous sup­port in Par­lia­ment to en­sure there’s teeth in crime de­ter­rent laws.”

Gre­go­rio said the cham­ber’s Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil is avail­able for the talks, which he sug­gest­ed be done in a way that al­lows for re­search from aca­d­e­mics and crim­i­nol­o­gists and so­lu­tions to be ob­tained and a sum­ma­ry pre­sent­ed to the Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion.

“If even short-term mea­sures are ac­com­plished so peo­ple feel safer walk­ing the streets of Port-of-Spain, Ch­agua­nas, Tu­na­puna, South, To­ba­go to do Christ­mas shop­ping, it would be a lift for Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion as well as Trinidad and To­ba­go,” Gre­go­rio added.

Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber pres­i­dent Bal­dath Ma­haraj said: “We would cer­tain­ly be hap­py to be part of the talks. We’re not a po­lit­i­cal par­ty so our views would be more ob­jec­tive.

“Our area hasn’t been hit 100 per cent by crime, but most peo­ple have been touched in some form, whether ex­tor­tion or oth­er­wise.”

Cit­ing re­ports of ex­tor­tion on the Mon­trose Main Road and one busi­ness place clos­ing due to de­mands for $1,000 week­ly pay­ments, he added, “We have so­lu­tions. We’ve had talks with se­cu­ri­ty com­pa­nies, restora­tive jus­tice and tech­nol­o­gy can help. We do­nat­ed a drone to the Freeport po­lice but I’m un­cer­tain about its full use. We don’t wish au­thor­i­ties to go luke­warm on the is­sue. We need to hit it strong­ly, now.”

Vivek Char­ran, of the Con­fed­er­a­tion of Re­gion­al Busi­ness Cham­bers, said: “We def­i­nite­ly want to be part of dis­cus­sions. We would pro­vide a lot of in­for­ma­tion from across Trinidad and To­ba­go that could be help­ful since crime isn’t the same every­where. Ex­tor­tion is oc­cur­ring in Ch­agua­nas and in the trans­port sec­tor but many are afraid to ap­proach the po­lice.”

Char­ran sug­gest­ed a hot­line to re­port ex­tor­tion at­tempts, a TTPS An­ti-Ex­tor­tion Squad com­pris­ing cen­tralised of­fi­cers and leg­is­la­tion.

Al­low more stake­hold­ers

The To­ba­go Busi­ness Cham­ber (TBC) wants to see more stake­hold­ers in­volved in the an­ti-crime talks and is will­ing to be part of the dis­cus­sions, said chair­man Mar­tin George.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, George said the Cham­ber not­ed “with ap­pre­ci­a­tion” Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s let­ter stat­ing will­ing­ness to work with the Gov­ern­ment to seek so­lu­tions.

“Each day, we read of more and more hor­ren­dous crimes and hor­rif­ic mur­ders be­ing com­mit­ted with im­puni­ty; most with guns, some with high pow­ered as­sault ri­fles. We need to all work to­geth­er to find so­lu­tions and we see (dis­cus­sions) as an im­por­tant first step,” he said.

“We want to see it matched by ac­tions, not just words from the Gov­ern­ment or words from the Op­po­si­tion. We want to see oth­er stake­hold­ers in­volved and we of the TBC are will­ing to be part of any dis­cus­sions to find so­lu­tions and to play our role in terms of im­ple­ment­ing so­lu­tions.”

George added: “We’re cer­tain that if we all work to­geth­er, we can find so­lu­tions and find our way out of this de­ba­cle in which we all find our­selves - be­cause it is a lose-lose sit­u­a­tion if this sce­nario con­tin­ues much longer in T&T.

“We’re all un­der threat, un­der the gun and liv­ing in fear. And this can­not be al­lowed to con­tin­ue. It’s an un­sus­tain­able sce­nario.”