Ke­jan Haynes

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar con­tin­ues to knock the Gov­ern­ment for the spi­ralling crime rate, say­ing it has no plan to tack­le the crime sit­u­a­tion.

She al­so yes­ter­day chal­lenged the Gov­ern­ment’s stance against in­creas­ing the num­ber of le­gal firearms on the streets, with­out di­rect­ly ad­vo­cat­ing for it as oth­ers in her par­ty have done re­cent­ly.

“I see they are now say­ing things about guns and how many have guns, so no Tom, Dick and Har­ry will get a gun,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

“But again, no re­al plans as to how they’re go­ing to deal with this bumper, spi­ralling mur­der rate that we’ve seen for this year, 2022.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar was speak­ing at her an­nu­al toy dri­ve in her Siparia con­stituen­cy.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar was asked to com­ment on the dou­ble mur­der of Princes Town moth­er Sashell El­liot and her 17-month-old daugh­ter No­va, who were shot dead in front of their In­di­an Walk, Moru­ga home.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said mur­ders are al­ways trag­ic, but it’s made worse around Christ­mas time, which is a time of fam­i­ly.

She called on cit­i­zens to con­tin­ue to be care­ful but ac­knowl­edged that no mat­ter how care­ful peo­ple are, it can still be a scary time.

“You know, I’m still await­ing the pep­per spray, we passed leg­is­la­tion. They have not made it come for­ward,” she said.

Pep­per spray ap­pli­ca­tions are on­ly open to im­porters and re­tail­ers. How­ev­er, the TTPS is yet to up­date the pub­lic on the ap­pli­ca­tion process for users.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar still com­mend­ed the TTPS for the work they were do­ing but said there was al­ways work for im­prove­ment.

“I would like to thank and con­grat­u­late the TTPS,” she said.

“I see a su­per­hero [of­fi­cer] de­liv­er­ing a ba­by and so there are al­ways those good ones out there and we con­grat­u­late and thank them. There’s al­ways room for im­prove­ment, even each and every one of us.”

When asked about her Christ­mas and New Year’s wish for 2023, Per­sad-Bisses­sar called on cit­i­zens to give to those less for­tu­nate this Christ­mas, es­pe­cial­ly those who have been af­fect­ed by re­cent flood­ing.

She al­so called for “a prop­er an­ti-crime plan.” She said the UNC has a lot of ideas and sug­ges­tions that they have been and will con­tin­ue to share.

“And for 2023, for all of us, for our na­tion, I would want us to see, you know, giv­ing a bit more help cre­at­ing more poli­cies and pro­grammes to bring jobs,” she said.

“That is what peo­ple in the coun­try need most at this time.”