An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Mar­gin­alised youths in T&T look­ing to earn a quick dol­lar through crim­i­nal pur­suits are dri­ving up op­er­at­ing costs for busi­ness­es, which in turn has sent the cost of liv­ing soar­ing for av­er­age cit­i­zens.

This was the view of Pe­tro­le­um Deal­ers' As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Robin Nar­i­nesingh yes­ter­day, as he lament­ed the fact that busi­ness own­ers were now “op­er­at­ing in an en­vi­ron­ment right now where there is hope­less­ness.”

“There is a dark­ness that is de­scend­ing up­on our coun­try where young peo­ple do not feel they are part of our coun­try and as a re­sult of this, they feel help­less,” Nar­i­nesingh said in an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia in Ch­agua­nas.

He in­sist­ed, “They want to be part of it and they feel left out. They feel mar­gin­alised and they take ac­tion that is not re­al­ly for the pro­duc­tiv­i­ty of our coun­try.

“As a re­sult of that, it dri­ves up costs. It makes things ex­pen­sive for the or­di­nary work­ing peo­ple.”

Nar­i­nesingh’s state­ments fol­lowed a rob­bery at the NP Quik Shoppe along Sad­dle Road, San Juan, around 11.15 pm on Thurs­day.

The late-night in­ci­dent, which was cap­tured on video by a near­by res­i­dent, showed five men, in­clud­ing two dressed in the type of cam­ou­flage uni­forms worn by mem­bers of the De­fence Force, flee­ing the scene.

Re­ports in­di­cate a fe­male work­er was on du­ty when the five sus­pects en­tered the es­tab­lish­ment and fired two shots in­to the air as they an­nounced a rob­bery.

One ban­dit en­tered area be­hind the counter and or­dered the woman to hand over the mon­ey in the cash reg­is­ter, which amount­ed to $6,000, be­fore snatch­ing her gold chain and run­ning off.

Asked how this and sim­i­lar in­ci­dents were af­fect­ing his mem­bers and the im­pact it was hav­ing on busi­ness, Nar­i­nesingh said, “We are all soft tar­gets in T&T. I mean, no one is re­al­ly ex­clud­ed from the scourge that is tak­ing place.”

He con­tin­ued, “We see our lead­ers. We see how they act. We see how they treat us and we see peo­ple, or­di­nary peo­ple, how they are scared to even in­ter­act with oth­er peo­ple. Trinidad and To­ba­go has nev­er been like that.”

Nar­i­nesingh urged cit­i­zens to be mind­ful of what they want for the coun­try, and to treat each oth­er in a like man­ner so as get rid of the scourge that was caus­ing so much un­hap­pi­ness among fam­i­lies and busi­ness­es.

Pressed to say if the as­so­ci­a­tion had met with the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) on how se­cu­ri­ty can be in­creased gen­er­al­ly, he ad­mit­ted, “We have not re­al­ly had any con­sul­ta­tion with any law-abid­ing body.”

He in­di­cat­ed that the po­lice had al­so not reached out to pe­tro­le­um deal­ers to speak about trends, or what di­rec­tion they should go.

He said, “As a re­sult, we are mar­gin­alised. We are kept out of the loop and every in­di­vid­ual deal­er would prob­a­bly act in their own best in­ter­ests to mit­i­gate the prob­lems that arise from crime.”

Con­firm­ing se­cu­ri­ty costs had gone up as there were a lot of costs as­so­ci­at­ed with crime, he ad­vised, “It is ob­vi­ous peo­ple will have to take spe­cial pre­cau­tions to stem the tide here.”

Again stat­ing that mar­gin­al­i­sa­tion of youth had led to crime be­ing on the rise, Nar­i­nesingh sur­mised, “This is the way they get recog­ni­tion.”

He agreed there was an un­easi­ness in the coun­try and that peo­ple are scared.

“Peo­ple do not feel mo­ti­vat­ed to go out there and do things, be­cause the vi­bran­cy of our na­tion is be­ing sub­dued,” he said.

Nar­i­nesingh said crime was not on­ly the deal­ers' prob­lem.

Rather, he claimed, “This is a coun­try prob­lem. This is all of us. No one is ex­clud­ed from all these syn­er­gies that goes on in crime.

“There are some peo­ple so de­prived, so de­pressed, they are in a re­al de­gen­er­a­tive state.”