Raphael John-Lall

raphael.lall@guardian.co.tt

CEO of the T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce Gabriel Faria is con­cerned that the on­go­ing con­tro­ver­sy over the ap­point­ment of a Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice could harm the busi­ness en­vi­ron­ment.

“There has been some con­cern raised by some mem­bers about the po­ten­tial risks in terms of crim­i­nal el­e­ments us­ing the op­por­tu­ni­ty to take ad­van­tage of the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion,” he said.

“We had a meet­ing with some of the board mem­bers to dis­cuss the is­sue. It was agreed there must be trans­paren­cy in the process for deal­ing with the is­sue and the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion must be ad­dressed ex­pe­di­tious­ly.”

The con­cern was echoed by Chair­man of the Con­fed­er­a­tion of Re­gion­al Busi­ness Cham­bers Vivek Char­ran who is call­ing on all in­sti­tu­tions re­spon­si­ble for the ap­point­ment of the next Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice to move the process along quick­ly so that crim­i­nals el­e­ments do not get the wrong idea that there is no lead­er­ship of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS).

Char­ran de­scribed the sit­u­a­tion as “un­for­tu­nate and scary” as it gives the im­pres­sion that with­out a Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice there is no firm lead­er­ship.

“The facts are that Gary Grif­fith has brought a lot of con­fi­dence and built good re­la­tions be­tween busi­ness and the po­lice. What­ev­er the me­chan­ics of the sit­u­a­tion with re­gard to his ap­point­ment is not for busi­ness to step in­side. At the end of the day, we will ac­cept who­ev­er is cho­sen,” he said.

Char­ran said while the coun­try is un­der a state of emer­gency, if that was not the case and crim­i­nal el­e­ments could have moved more freely the sit­u­a­tion could have been much worse in terms of the im­pact of crime.

“In a sense that pro­vides some pro­tec­tion. We thought it would have been a sim­ple process for the ap­point­ment of a Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er. We want this to be re­solved as quick­ly as pos­si­ble so that the con­fi­dence in the po­lice ser­vice can be re­stored.”

Mem­bers of the Con­fed­er­a­tion of Re­gion­al Busi­ness Cham­ber in­clude the Greater Tu­na­puna Busi­ness Cham­ber, the East­ern Busi­ness and Mer­chants As­so­ci­a­tion, Gas­par­il­lo Busi­ness Cham­ber, San Fer­nan­do Busi­ness Cham­ber, Cunu­pia Busi­ness As­so­ci­a­tion, Pe­nal/Debe Cham­ber of Com­merce, Siparia Cham­ber of Com­merce, South West­ern Cham­ber of Com­merce, Pe­tro­le­um Deal­ers As­so­ci­a­tion, Pe­tro­le­um Deal­ers Co-op­er­a­tive, Yacht Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion, Re­tail As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T and the Su­per­mar­ket As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T which is an in­de­pen­dent af­fil­i­ate.