Jesse Ramdeo

To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine says cit­i­zens must bend a knee in their stance against crime.

He made the com­ment on Thurs­day dur­ing Gospel Night, the first event to kick­start the week­end’s 2023 To­ba­go Jazz Ex­pe­ri­ence at the Shaw Park Com­plex.

Au­gus­tine said prayer re­mained crit­i­cal in re­sponse to grow­ing crime and vi­o­lence.

“At a time when we grap­pling with many so­cial is­sues, we see what is hap­pen­ing with our young peo­ple, I am say­ing the war we have to fight may not re­quire us to spend more mon­ey on cars and guns, but more times on our knees and sing praise to God,” he said.

The THA Chief Sec­re­tary’s com­ment came just days af­ter a two-day Cari­com Crime Sym­po­sium con­clud­ed with re­gion­al lead­ers mov­ing to­wards ban­ning the pub­lic’s use of as­sault weapons.

Au­gus­tine main­tained that the an­swer to the cur­rent crime scourge can be found in the holy texts and plead­ed with those in at­ten­dance to con­tin­ue of­fer­ing prayers and not be daunt­ed.

“We have an is­land and a coun­try to go to war for and we will do that on our knees and we will do that by singing prais­es to the most high God, so keep us in your prayers, keep pray­ing for the is­land gov­ern­ment, keep pray­ing for the coun­try, keep pray­ing for your sec­re­taries, keep pray­ing for all the min­is­ters of gov­ern­ment and even those in op­po­si­tion and pray to God that he will de­liv­er us from the wrath we have found our­selves in,” he said.

Au­gus­tine al­so not­ed that To­ba­go was proud of its God­ly her­itage and as­sured that cit­i­zens will nev­er shirk their re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to keep the na­tion in prayer.

He al­so ex­plained the sig­nif­i­cance of launch­ing the fes­ti­val, which re­turned af­ter a three-year ab­sence due to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

“Hav­ing gospel in this year’s fea­ture was to send a clear mes­sage that we are go­ing to in­vest in those who sing prais­es un­to the most high God.”

Thurs­day’s gospel con­cert saw artistes such as Jar­od Nurse, Shan­tal Lind­say, Pos­i­tive and Pas­tor Ter­rance Baynes belt out gospel tunes that shook the crowd, many of whom were sway­ing their shoul­ders and clap­ping along in wor­ship through­out the Shaw Park Com­plex au­di­to­ri­um. Themes of love, peace and the pow­er of prayer rang loud through­out the night.