Sto­ries by Gail Alexan­der

Not so, Prime Min­is­ter!

That’s the re­buke from Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and busi­ness­man Gary Aboud, af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley on Wednes­day de­clined to an­swer re­porters’ ques­tions on T&T’s wors­en­ing crime sit­u­a­tion and calls for a state of emer­gency.

Row­ley was ap­proached by re­porters fol­low­ing a sod-turn­ing cer­e­mo­ny in Cou­va. How­ev­er, the PM was quot­ed as say­ing, “You know I don’t en­cour­age that.”

He was then es­cort­ed by Spe­cial Branch po­lice of­fi­cers to his wait­ing SUV and left.

Re­porters had sought the Prime Min­is­ter’s views on home in­va­sions in North and South, the mur­ders of busi­ness­men and oth­er crime is­sues and al­so want­ed to ask about calls - in­clud­ing from Aboud and Is­rael Khan SC - for a lim­it­ed state of emer­gency in hotspots; and about calls for the dis­missal of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds.

In a press re­lease yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar stat­ed, “Kei­th Row­ley’s re­fusal to ad­dress the me­dia (Wednes­day) af­ter yet an­oth­er spate of vi­o­lent home in­va­sions and rob­beries over the East­er week­end trau­ma­tised our na­tion, demon­strates his com­plete con­tempt for the peo­ple of our na­tion.

“By re­fus­ing to talk to the me­dia, Kei­th Row­ley is show­ing he is out of touch with the con­cerns of our cit­i­zens, that he is con­temp­tu­ous and cares lit­tle about the na­tion­al cri­sis un­fold­ing with re­gard to pub­lic safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty.”

She added, “It is clear to every­one in T&T that Row­ley views him­self not as a pub­lic ser­vant, elect­ed to rep­re­sent the in­ter­ests of all cit­i­zens, but rather as a monarch who can choose which is­sue or per­son he can ad­dress. This is sim­ply un­ac­cept­able.

“The en­tire na­tion is now liv­ing in fear and is ea­ger to learn what mea­sures, if any, the Gov­ern­ment is tak­ing to ad­dress the sharp in­crease in home in­va­sions and the seem­ing im­puni­ty with which crim­i­nals now pos­sess in T&T.

She said Row­ley’s fail­ure to act or ac­knowl­edge the prob­lem was ef­fec­tive­ly fur­ther con­tribut­ing to the dra­mat­ic es­ca­la­tion of crim­i­nal be­hav­iour.

“The PNM is now es­sen­tial­ly en­abling, aid­ing and abet­ting the now dai­ly as­sault on the peo­ple.”

Busi­ness­man and Fish­er­man and Friends of the Sea gen­er­al sec­re­tary Aboud al­so frowned on Row­ley’s re­luc­tance to speak.

Aboud said, “The ar­ro­gance of not tak­ing ques­tions while so many in­no­cents are be­ing mur­dered! If he can’t con­sult and share, lead with wis­dom and a sense of en­light­en­ment, then he should al­low some­one else in the par­ty to take a lead­er­ship role.

“PM Row­ley should be ashamed for turn­ing a blind eye and ig­nor­ing the pleas from our peo­ple to end the mur­ders, gang vi­o­lence and home in­va­sions.”

He added, “If ever in our his­to­ry was a SoE re­quired, it is now. We are liv­ing in a state of civ­il war! Our sug­ges­tion is for the amnesty first to clean the streets of guns and then the SoE lim­it­ed to the hot spot ar­eas to search and re­move and in­car­cer­ate with stiffer penal­ties if weapons are found.”

On calls to re­move Hinds, Aboud said, “We have no prob­lem with any min­is­ter as long as they’re held ac­count­able, act ac­cord­ing­ly, and as long as they con­sult and as long as cit­i­zens are be­ing pro­tect­ed from dan­ger.

“It ap­pears Min­is­ter Hinds has failed mis­er­ably and should step down if he’s not up to task in pro­tect­ing cit­i­zens, or be re­moved for his in­com­pe­tence, and non­cha­lance. He must un­der­stand that it is his du­ty to en­sure the safe­ty of every sin­gle per­son in T&T.”

Aboud called for Cari­com lead­ers meet­ing in T&T at next week’s crime sym­po­sium to un­der­stand that white-col­lar crime via pro­cure­ment kick­backs is the root of re­gion­al crime.

“How can we urge a moral so­ci­ety when re­gion­al­ly, every Cab­i­net’s ex­am­ple of pro­cure­ment thiev­ery is glar­ing. While an al­most 35 av­er­age of our en­tire re­gion lives be­low the World Bank pover­ty in­dex, Cari­com is a dis­grace and waste of time un­less it shows a will­ing­ness to leg­is­late for in­de­pen­dent pro­cure­ment over­sight.”