If Gov­ern­ment wants to talk about crime they should come with a plan and the Op­po­si­tion will look at that plan for cit­i­zen safe­ty. How­ev­er, the Gov­ern­ment shouldn’t waste time hold­ing pub­lic con­ver­sa­tions about the crime prob­lem, San Juan/Barataria MP Sad­dam Ho­sein said yes­ter­day.

“The time for talk is done, the time for ac­tion is now,” he said at a me­dia brief­ing host­ed by the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC).

He said if the Gov­ern­ment wants to en­gage the Op­po­si­tion on crime there is a Par­lia­ment floor. He was al­so crit­i­cal of what oc­curred dur­ing a re­cent de­bate on his mo­tion on crime and Gov­ern­ment’s state­ments in the mat­ter.

Com­ment­ing on Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s plans for pub­lic con­ver­sa­tions on the is­sue, Ho­sein said Gov­ern­ment had failed to pro­duce a con­crete plan for fight­ing crime.

“Re­spect­ful­ly Prime Min­is­ter, I think the time for talk­ing is done. Now is the time for ac­tion and if you can­not deal with the crime, I think it’s time you call a gen­er­al elec­tion and let the peo­ple se­lect a new gov­ern­ment with a new man­date to pro­tect cit­i­zens be­cause you have failed when it comes to one of the most pri­ma­ry re­spon­si­bil­i­ties which is to keep cit­i­zens safe,”

“The Prime Min­is­ter could talk all he wants, what we need is a plan. We need spe­cial an­ti-crime mea­sures all year round, not just for Car­ni­val.”

Ho­sein said T&T is en­ter­ing Car­ni­val 2023 and there have been trav­el ad­vi­sories against this coun­try by the Unit­ed States and oth­er places.

“I don’ t know if they’ll be re­newed or con­tin­ued be­cause the Car­ni­val pe­ri­od is known for a lot of tourist ac­tiv­i­ties,” he said

In re­sponse to Guardian and Ex­press ed­i­to­ri­als call­ing for the UNC to co-op­er­ate on crime, Ho­sein list­ed bills the op­po­si­tion par­ty had sup­port­ed in re­cent years. He said Gov­ern­ment took the ap­proach that they want­ed to fight crime by them­selves.

Ho­sein claimed the In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors were the ones who re­ject­ed the 2022 Bail Bill and rec­om­mend­ed that in­stead of no bail for 120 days, tri­als should be com­plet­ed in that time.

He said the an­swer wasn’t how many laws were passed but how they were op­er­a­tionalised. He al­so re­it­er­at­ed the UNC’s call for the dis­missal of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds.

“He’s failed. He took a lazy, laid back, in­com­pe­tent ap­proach and has lost all moral au­thor­i­ty to re­main min­is­ter,” he said.

—Gail Alexan­der