Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath says the Gov­ern­ment may again ap­proach the Op­po­si­tion and In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors for sup­port for the long-de­bat­ed Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSO) leg­is­la­tion—and he is of­fer­ing his own con­stituen­cy as one of the first ar­eas to be des­ig­nat­ed.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia on Car­ni­val Mon­day in Port-of-Spain, Padarath said re­cent vi­o­lent mur­ders and shoot­ings re­in­forced the need to re­vis­it the mea­sure, which pre­vi­ous­ly failed to se­cure enough votes in the Sen­ate.

“Crime con­tin­ues to be a con­cern of ours. You would re­call we have the ZOSO bill. And, I think that des­per­ate times call for des­per­ate mea­sures, and there­fore we re­al­ly need to con­cen­trate on re­newed strate­gies to ad­dress the crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty in the coun­try,” he said.

The min­is­ter ar­gued the Gov­ern­ment has shown po­lit­i­cal will­ing­ness to con­front crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty, but can­not pro­ceed with­out par­lia­men­tary back­ing.

“I think the Gov­ern­ment has demon­strat­ed that we have the po­lit­i­cal will to deal with crime, but we need the sup­port of the Op­po­si­tion and the In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors, and I think in light of what has oc­curred in the past 24 hours, at least it shows most def­i­nite­ly we need to re­think and re-look at some of those strate­gies, par­tic­u­lar­ly that ZOSO le­gal­i­sa­tion.”

Padarath said once Car­ni­val ends, the ad­min­is­tra­tion in­tends to re­open dis­cus­sions on crime-fight­ing strate­gies and again seek par­lia­men­tary co­op­er­a­tion.

“Safe­ty con­tin­ues to re­main a pri­or­i­ty of ours, and there­fore, af­ter Car­ni­val Tues­day, we have to go back to the draw­ing board in terms of call­ing on the op­po­si­tion and the in­de­pen­dents to give us that sup­port that is much need­ed to make ef­fec­tive changes in Trinidad and To­ba­go. We can­not con­tin­ue to just sit down and com­plain. You must come up with ef­fec­tive strate­gies, and there­fore, we are say­ing, give it a try.”

He al­so dis­closed that a re­cent dou­ble mur­der in­volv­ing a moth­er and child oc­curred in his Cou­va South con­stituen­cy, which he said faces on­go­ing gang ac­tiv­i­ty.

“And there­fore, I want to say to the Prime Min­is­ter, this is for the Prime Min­is­ter, if you de­cide to bring back the ZOSO, I want Cou­va South to be a zone.” - Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les