SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal says ad­vi­sories from diplo­mat­ic mis­sions in T&T have the po­ten­tial to lead to an in­vest­ment strike in T&T.

Mooni­lal made the com­ment as he de­liv­ered his con­tri­bu­tion in Par­lia­ment to a pri­vate mo­tion on the fail­ure to di­ver­si­fy the econ­o­my.

He was re­fer­ring to an up­dat­ed ad­vi­so­ry from the Unit­ed States Em­bassy in Port-of-Spain that warned its cit­i­zens to ex­er­cise cau­tion in T&T due to crime and ter­ror­ism. Aus­tralia, Cana­da and the Unit­ed King­dom al­so have sim­i­lar warn­ings in the wake of of the po­lice con­firm­ing they had stopped a plot to dis­rupt Car­ni­val ac­tiv­i­ties and a meet­ing be­tween diplo­mats from those coun­tries and Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley this week.

Yes­ter­day dur­ing his con­tri­bu­tion, Mooni­lal said when he saw the up­dat­ed US ad­vi­so­ry on Thurs­day he thought it was fake news, but sub­se­quent­ly found it was re­al.

“I could not be­lieve a Unit­ed States Em­bassy could write ex­er­cise ex­treme cau­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go to crime and ter­ror­ism.”

He said while the Min­istry of Tourism had been en­cour­ag­ing tourists to come and seek­ing to in­crease vis­i­tor ar­rivals, the ad­vi­so­ry warned its cit­i­zens of vi­o­lent crimes such as mur­der, rob­bery, as­sault sex­u­al as­sault, home in­va­sion, kid­nap­ping, gang ac­tiv­i­ty be­ing com­mon­place and that ter­ror­ists may at­tack with lit­tle or no warn­ing in pub­lic places such as trans­porta­tion hubs, malls, clubs, church­es, parks and restau­rants. It al­so ad­vised that they should not trav­el to some ar­eas of the cap­i­tal city due to crime.

“Where the tourist should go? Deputy Speak­er, this is the whole coun­try. Who com­ing here, an as­sas­sin?

“This will im­pede on in­vest­ments. Who is com­ing to in­vest in T&T when they read that they not safe at any pub­lic place? This has the po­ten­tial to lead to an in­vest­ment strike. A cap­i­tal flight.”

Among the in­dus­tries like­ly to be af­fect­ed by this ad­vi­so­ry, Mooni­lal said, are en­er­gy, man­u­fac­tur­ing and tourism, which are job cre­at­ing sec­tors.

“The en­er­gy sec­tor make mon­ey, we know that, but they em­ploy three per cent of the labour mar­ket. The Gov­ern­ment should be re­spond­ing to this (ad­vi­so­ry), telling the pop­u­la­tion what you in­tend to do apart from blam­ing the Op­po­si­tion.”

Mooni­lal said T&T was in a state of war, adding cit­i­zens no longer talk about cor­rup­tion be­cause they are too con­sumed with mur­ders and blood­shed in our land.