UNC deputy po­lit­i­cal leader Dr Roodal Mooni­lal and Rush­ton Paray, leader of the Unit­ed Pa­tri­ots (UP) slate in the par­ty’s in­ter­nal polls, have both made it clear that the Op­po­si­tion’s doors are closed to Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s call for crime talks.

In a state­ment on Tues­day fol­low­ing the four bru­tal mur­ders in Gon­za­les and the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, Row­ley said the Gov­ern­ment is “ready to dis­cuss this and sim­i­lar ini­tia­tives with our par­lia­men­tary col­leagues if on­ly they will see it as their job too.”

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar didn’t re­spond to calls for com­ment on Row­ley’s state­ments yes­ter­day. How­ev­er, Mooni­lal re­ject­ed Row­ley’s call for an­ti-crime talks.

“At this 99th hour, when the ar­ro­gance and in­com­pe­tence of Row­ley, (En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art) Young and (Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Fitzger­ald) Hinds have plunged our na­tion in­to ut­ter chaos, the peo­ple are strin­gent in the call for gen­er­al elec­tions to re­move this blight of a gov­ern­ment,” Mooni­lal said.

“No amount of talk­ing to Row­ley can bring hope and se­cu­ri­ty. I’m shocked that the $3 mil­lion crime sym­po­sium at the Hy­att has not re­pelled the crim­i­nals or that the $100 mil­lion in­ter­ven­tion in hotspots hasn’t crip­pled the gangs.”

Pressed on whether the Op­po­si­tion didn’t want to have any an­ti-crime dis­cus­sions with the Gov­ern­ment, Mooni­lal added, “Row­ley and (At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald) Ar­mour are in­com­pe­tent and can­not be trust­ed.”

Ma­yaro MP Paray, who is lead­ing the UP slate in the UNC’s June 15 in­ter­nal elec­tion, said of Row­ley’s state­ment, “The UNC has con­sis­tent­ly sup­port­ed leg­is­la­tion that ben­e­fits Trinidad and To­ba­go. We have a com­mend­able his­to­ry of back­ing nu­mer­ous bills while ex­er­cis­ing our con­sti­tu­tion­al right to re­ject those that are flawed or ex­hib­it po­lit­i­cal over­reach.

“Dr Row­ley’s call for col­lab­o­ra­tion re­mains disin­gen­u­ous. As Prime Min­is­ter, he bears the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of fos­ter­ing an en­vi­ron­ment con­ducive to con­sen­sus build­ing and ac­com­mo­da­tion. I’m con­fi­dent that the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion will en­gage in di­a­logue when there are gen­uine sig­nals of col­lab­o­ra­tion and re­spect.”

Ch­agua­nas West MP Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly, speak­ing ahead of the mid-year re­view of the 2024 Bud­get, sched­uled for to­mor­row, said as un­for­tu­nate as it was, the crime sit­u­a­tion proved the point he made dur­ing the bud­get de­bate that the fis­cal pack­age would not have changed a thing on crime fight­ing.

“No steps were tak­en and the crime sit­u­a­tion is now worse than when I gave my Bud­get re­ply,” Ram­bal­ly said.

He not­ed he had said then that Op­po­si­tion MPs were will­ing to work with the Gov­ern­ment to com­bat crime, “re­group, re­fo­cus, re­think and re-strate­gise to deal with the run­away crime scourge” and that the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter should of­fer his res­ig­na­tion.

Ram­bal­ly re­count­ed the is­sues he had list­ed in his bud­get re­ply. While he had com­mend­ed the TTPS for bat­tling crim­i­nals, he stood by his claim that the Bud­get was de­void of plans, ideas and hopes that the Gov­ern­ment in­tend­ed to re­store safe­ty and sta­bil­i­ty to T&T. He al­so said the bud­get would have no de­vel­op­men­tal val­ue if crime wasn’t ar­rest­ed.

Row­ley’s re­cent out­reach to “par­lia­men­tary col­leagues” fol­lowed a failed bid by both sides last year to get an­ti-crime talks go­ing. That ef­fort came af­ter Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo made a call at the open­ing of Par­lia­ment’s fourth ses­sion last Sep­tem­ber, for uni­ty be­tween the Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion on leg­is­la­tion and oth­er mea­sures to fight crime.

The Op­po­si­tion al­so called for an­ti-crime talks in April 2023 but made no head­way with the Gov­ern­ment. In Sep­tem­ber, Per­sad-Bisses­sar grasped the op­por­tu­ni­ty of­fered by the Pres­i­dent’s state­ments and the Gov­ern­ment sub­se­quent­ly made a move. They be­gan cor­re­spond­ing on prepa­ra­tions for the talks but the process stalled af­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Row­ley hadn’t replied to her Oc­to­ber 14 let­ter seek­ing clar­i­fi­ca­tion on sev­er­al points. Cit­ing pro­to­col, Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­fused to meet the No­vem­ber 9 dead­line set by At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour to name her team for the talks.

The UNC then em­barked on a se­ries of an­ti-crime con­sul­ta­tions with the pub­lic. The most re­cent was held in Laven­tille last month.