ELIZ­A­BETH GON­ZA­LES

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce’s To­ba­go Di­vi­sion is in sup­port of plans to es­tab­lish a To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly po­lice force.

Dur­ing a me­dia con­fer­ence yes­ter­day, Cur­tis Williams, pres­i­dent of the To­ba­go Cham­ber, said he sees no is­sue with a THA po­lice force, liken­ing its po­ten­tial suc­cess to that of mu­nic­i­pal po­lice forces.

Williams said, “The nor­mal po­lice could play a role in oth­er parts of the is­land’s se­cu­ri­ty. Let the nor­mal do­mes­tic po­lice deal with these oth­er ar­eas to see­ing about the beach­es and where peo­ple come in when we are sleep­ing at nights.”

Last week, Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine, in re­sponse to the ris­ing num­ber of mur­ders and shoot­ings in To­ba­go, said it was time for the is­land to have its own po­lice force, which would fall un­der the THA.

Au­gus­tine said he will be re­quest­ing the funds to set up the po­lice force from the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment in the THA’s bud­get es­ti­mates next month.

Yes­ter­day, Williams said To­ba­go’s crime sit­u­a­tion is a con­cern among the is­land’s busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, but said busi­ness­men and women are pre­pared to put up a fight.

“We haven’t lost the war on crime at all. There are one or two en­ti­ties that have de­cid­ed to raise their heads and we are go­ing to put them back down and let them go sleep­ing be­cause that is what was hap­pen­ing all the time,” he said.

He added the cham­ber has met with ACP Col­lis Hazel for an up­date on plans to re­duce crime on the is­land. He is con­fi­dent the is­land will soon have the crime sit­u­a­tion un­der con­trol soon.

“Crime is a big con­cern for us as a busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, we are much con­cerned about the sto­ry be­ing told when there is a mur­der on the is­land.

“I can as­sure you that we ful­ly sup­port the THA with that as­pect of cre­at­ing that de­part­ment of safe­ty that could re­al­ly put a stop to what is hap­pen­ing with­in some of our com­mu­ni­ties. We have some ini­tia­tives hap­pen­ing and we will share those soon,” he ex­plained.

To­ba­go has record­ed ten mur­ders thus far in 2024.