While Sen­a­tor Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al con­tin­ued the Op­po­si­tion’s pum­mel­ing of the Gov­ern­ment’s han­dling of crime, Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Le­gal Af­fairs Renu­ka Sagram­s­ingh-Sook­lal struck back, ac­cus­ing the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress of “speak­ing out of two sides of their mouths”.

Both sen­a­tors pre­sent­ed feisty con­tri­bu­tions to the 2024 Bud­get de­bate in the Up­per House yes­ter­day. Re­spond­ing to Min­is­ter of Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts Ran­dall Michell’s con­tri­bu­tion on Mon­day night, Lutch­me­di­al said that while he spoke about room stock and air­lift, there was no men­tion of the neg­a­tive trav­el ad­vi­sories against Trinidad and To­ba­go.

She read from the US De­part­ment of State’s trav­el ad­vi­so­ry last Ju­ly when it urged its cit­i­zens to re­con­sid­er trav­el to T&T and to ex­er­cise cau­tion due to ter­ror­ism and kid­nap­ping. It pro­hib­it­ed ar­eas for US gov­ern­ment per­son­nel to trav­el, in­clud­ing beach­es.

Lutch­me­di­al said the re­cent Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) me­dia con­fer­ence re­vealed that of the 400-plus mur­ders this year, 14 were for­eign­ers.

She al­so read a Cana­di­an gov­ern­ment ad­vi­so­ry that urged its cit­i­zens to ex­er­cise cau­tion due to vi­o­lent crimes such as armed rob­bery, as­sault, and sex­u­al as­sault, es­pe­cial­ly in Port-of-Spain, where crim­i­nals tar­get tourists. She al­so spoke of the Unit­ed King­dom’s ad­vi­so­ry, which warned its cit­i­zens not to car­ry large sums of cash and eye-catch­ing jew­el­ry.

“Imag­ine for­eign gov­ern­ment telling their cit­i­zens do not walk with cash, and I think all of us saw first-hand what hap­pened to a per­son, who I think had dual cit­i­zen­ship, walk­ing through Port-of-Spain re­cent­ly be­ing robbed and beat­en and had to give up, and the com­ments that she made to the me­dia,” Lutch­me­di­al said.

She added there was noth­ing in the bud­get to in­spire cit­i­zens that the Gov­ern­ment would clamp down on vi­o­lent crime.

Mean­while, she said the TTPS has a pal­try 13 per cent de­tec­tion rate and an even low­er con­vic­tion rate.

 Al­though Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley said back in Ju­ly that Gov­ern­ment was ful­fill­ing its promise to re­cruit 1000 mu­nic­i­pal po­lice of­fi­cers, Lutch­me­di­al said the coun­try was still wait­ing. While the TTPS re­ceived body cam­eras to help boost trans­paren­cy and pub­lic con­fi­dence in of­fi­cers, she said they are non-func­tion­al. While there is a promise of more po­lice ve­hi­cles, Lutch­me­di­al re­vealed a scrap­yard in Mara­bel­la filled with old po­lice ve­hi­cles await­ing re­pairs. She al­so re­called that 45 per cent of 1,796 CCTV cam­eras were not work­ing.

Lutch­me­di­al ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of in­tel­lec­tu­al lazi­ness, say­ing the on­ly plan it had was deny­ing bail to al­leged crim­i­nals and blam­ing the Op­po­si­tion for not sup­port­ing it. She said that whether a per­son was in­no­cent or guilty, a first-time of­fend­er or re­peat of­fend­er, Gov­ern­ment wants to re­strict their right to bail and pre­sump­tion of in­no­cence.

‘Jayan­ti a spin doc­tor’

But re­spond­ing to Lutch­me­di­al, Sagram­s­ingh-Sook­lal said the Gov­ern­ment was not obliv­i­ous to the high crime lev­el but said it was false to sug­gest it was un­con­cerned. Sagram­s­ingh-Sook­lal, whose 16-year-old daugh­ter was in the pub­lic gallery lis­ten­ing to her con­tri­bu­tion, la­belled Lutch­me­di­al a spin doc­tor on the is­sue of bail, say­ing she at­tempt­ed to jus­ti­fy why the Op­po­si­tion did not sup­port the Bail Amend­ment Bill.

Lutch­me­di­al spoke about the killing of for­mer mur­der ac­cused Ak­ili Charles, whose lit­i­ga­tion led to a his­toric court rul­ing which paved the way for peo­ple on a mur­der charge to ap­ply for bail. She claimed Charles nev­er got help from the State and in­stead re­turned to his com­mu­ni­ty, re­fused to join a gang and was killed.

Sagram­s­ingh-Sook­lal said Charles’ mur­der­er shot him just three days af­ter the Bail Amend­ment Bill failed in the Sen­ate. She said if the Gov­ern­ment had Op­po­si­tion sup­port, there may have been ben­e­fits, and Charles might have been alive to tell the sto­ry.

Sagram­s­ingh-Sook­lal said the Gov­ern­ment of­ten speaks about the need for Op­po­si­tion sup­port be­cause some leg­is­la­tion re­quired to deal with crime may some­times seem dra­con­ian, as it will lim­it the rights of those ac­cused of crimes. While the Op­po­si­tion wants the po­lice to lock down com­mu­ni­ties, she said it meant re­strict­ing cit­i­zens’ right to free move­ment.

She said the UNC does not sup­port when­ev­er the Gov­ern­ment seeks to pass an­ti-crime leg­is­la­tion.

“Sen­a­tor Lutch­me­di­al, I will nev­er for­get the day sit­ting in this Sen­ate when the Bail Bill was de­bat­ed. Sen­a­tor spoke at length about the right of the ac­cused and the pale in the prison, and you would swear it was God him­self in that cell,” Sagram­s­ingh-Sook­lal said.

Re­gard­ing porous bor­ders, the Gov­ern­ment Sen­a­tor said bor­der pro­tec­tion goes be­yond port scan­ners. She said there was the Na­tion­al Mar­itime In­for­ma­tion Sys­tem, Joint Mar­itime Con­trol Unit Air, and Joint Mar­itime In­ter­dic­tion Unit to com­bat off­shore crime. Gov­ern­ment al­so al­lo­cat­ed $15 mil­lion for ten ad­di­tion­al TTPS River­ine crafts.