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Wednesday, July 16, 2025

Tobago Business Chamber wants a further police shake-up

by

296 days ago
20240923
Chairman of The Tobago Business Chamber Martin George speaks at the Citizens Summit on Crime and Violence in St Joseph yesterday.

Chairman of The Tobago Business Chamber Martin George speaks at the Citizens Summit on Crime and Violence in St Joseph yesterday.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

With an­oth­er mur­der just days af­ter the hi­er­ar­chy of the To­ba­go Di­vi­sion of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) was changed, the chair­man of the To­ba­go Busi­ness Cham­ber Mar­tin George is call­ing for a fur­ther shake-up of the po­lice on the is­land.

George, who at­tend­ed the Cit­i­zen’s Sum­mit on Crime and Vi­o­lence at the TML Hall, St Joseph, yes­ter­day, said re­plac­ing act­ing ACP Col­lis Hazel and Snr Supt Rod­hill Kirk with ACP Os­wain Subero and Snr Supt Earl Elie two weeks ago was the first step in the right di­rec­tion.

“That is a start, def­i­nite­ly. You can’t keep do­ing the same thing over and over and ex­pect dif­fer­ent re­sults so chang­ing the lead­er­ship at the top is a start,” he said.

How­ev­er, he wants more of­fi­cers to be shuf­fled as they have be­come too com­pla­cent. George ex­pressed con­cern about the is­land’s most re­cent mur­der, the shoot­ing death of Nicholas Mitchell in Ar­gyle.

Mitchell, 32, was asleep when gun­men en­tered his home through a win­dow and shot him. A day ear­li­er, Bran­don Ed­wards was gunned down while on his way home af­ter lim­ing at a bar.

George said, “You need some new blood, new ideas, you need new in­vig­o­ra­tion. They need to look at ro­tat­ing more of­fi­cers not just the head, go down the line, check those who have been there for decades ro­tate them and bring in new blood and new ideas.”

He ex­plained that this will ad­dress the claims of nepo­tism and favouritism where some of­fi­cers are afraid to prop­er­ly in­ves­ti­gate mat­ters in­volv­ing rel­a­tives and friends. He said new of­fi­cers un­fa­mil­iar with the peo­ple would be bet­ter suit­ed to take over.

George, a for­mer mem­ber of the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PolSC), added that the po­lice ex­ec­u­tive needs to be held to ac­count, as is its con­sti­tu­tion­al man­date and not re­main “dumb and mum.”

Asked about his wish for the up­com­ing bud­get, George said re­peal­ing one piece of leg­is­la­tion will bring in much-need­ed forex for the coun­try.

“My first and great­est wish is that the Min­is­ter (of Fi­nance Colm Im­bert) cause the im­me­di­ate and un­con­di­tion­al re­peal of the For­eign In­vest­ment Act. That act has crip­pled and sti­fled all di­rect for­eign in­vest­ment in To­ba­go. It is so pal­pa­bly ab­surd and stu­pid,” he said.

George said at a time when the coun­try is starved for for­eign ex­change, the law makes it al­most im­pos­si­ble for To­ba­go to seek for­eign in­vestors on its own.

Im­bert is ex­pect­ed to de­liv­er the bud­get in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives next Mon­day.

Last year’s bud­get was a $59.209 bil­lion pack­age pred­i­cat­ed on an oil price of US$85 per bar­rel and a nat­ur­al gas price of US$5 per MMB­tu.

To­ba­go re­ceived $2.585 bil­lion, of which $2.298 bil­lion was al­lo­cat­ed for re­cur­rent ex­pen­di­ture, $260 mil­lion for de­vel­op­ment, $18 mil­lion for the Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gramme and $9.2 mil­lion for the Com­mu­ni­ty-Based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme (CEPEP).


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