Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Crim­i­nol­o­gist Dr Randy Seep­er­sad says al­leged threats against Gov­ern­ment min­is­ters show the crim­i­nal el­e­ments sense a re­al threat from the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion.

“The Gov­ern­ment is on the right track, and the Gov­ern­ment needs to stick to its guns. They need to do what the State needs to do be­cause this kind of de­ci­sive ac­tion is ac­tu­al­ly nec­es­sary. If we just let things slide and we turn a blind eye to what is hap­pen­ing with the crim­i­nal el­e­ment, even­tu­al­ly it’s go­ing to take over, and we have seen where Ja­maica has reached. If we take a more ex­treme ex­am­ple, we’ve seen where Haiti has reached, and we re­al­ly don’t want Trinidad and To­ba­go to reach that lev­el.”

At least three Gov­ern­ment min­is­ters’ lives have re­port­ed­ly been threat­ened. Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Khadi­jah Ameen, De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge, and Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath are all re­port­ed­ly un­der threat, af­ter Gov­ern­ment sought to re­struc­ture the Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gramme (URP) and the Com­mu­ni­ty-Based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme (CEPEP).

Sturge, it was claimed, re­fused de­mands to en­sure cer­tain peo­ple were em­ployed by the State and at his To­co/San­gre Grande con­stituen­cy of­fice. This re­fusal al­leged­ly led to threats to his life.

Yes­ter­day, Seep­er­sad said State con­tracts were used to fu­el gangs for years, and the re­struc­tur­ing eats away at the crim­i­nals’ prof­it, some­thing they are un­ac­cus­tomed to. As such, he said these gangs were now fight­ing back.

“We have seen it (in the past), but not as we are see­ing it now, crim­i­nal el­e­ments threat­en­ing state agen­cies and state ac­tors. Yes, we’ve had cas­es of prison of­fi­cers be­ing killed, po­lice of­fi­cers be­ing killed, etc. But this is go­ing up, you know, to the lev­el of min­is­ters and so forth. And what it sug­gests, to me at least, is that the crim­i­nal el­e­ment sens­es a re­al threat from the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion.”

He said with the an­ti-crime plan and what he de­scribed as the suc­cess of the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion in its first 100 days, crim­i­nals were wor­ried.

The crim­i­nol­o­gist said that wor­ry has now turned in­to al­leged threats against min­is­ters.

“It is in­deed trou­bling that crim­i­nal el­e­ments would at­tempt to tar­get or threat­en Gov­ern­ment min­is­ters. It re­al­ly speaks to a cou­ple of things. One has to be the lev­el at which the crim­i­nal el­e­ment has been em­bold­ened, and it’s a re­al­ly sad day when you reach a lev­el that crim­i­nal el­e­ments threat­en the State and state agen­cies.”

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar on Mon­day blamed the al­leged threats on gangs be­ing starved of funds due to the clam­p­down on URP and CEPEP.