A ma­jor air­line has de­clined to launch di­rect flights to To­ba­go and the US Nu­cor steel man­u­fac­tur­ing gi­ant has al­so re­ject­ed the Gov­ern­ment’s of­fer to ex­pand lo­cal in­vest­ment due to crime, says Trade Min­is­ter Satyaka­ma Ma­haraj.

Ma­haraj stressed that the Home In­va­sion (Self-De­fence and De­fence of Prop­er­ty) Bill is nec­es­sary to se­cure in­vest­ment.

“For those who say this leg­is­la­tion is dra­con­ian, this is what we want to show the lo­cal pop­u­la­tion and in­vestors - that we’re tak­ing a hard­line, se­ri­ous ap­proach to crime,” Ma­haraj said dur­ing Tues­day’s de­bate on the bill.

Ma­haraj said the leg­is­la­tion is not on­ly time­ly, but al­so es­sen­tial.

“It reaf­firms one of the most sa­cred prin­ci­ples of our so­ci­ety: the sanc­ti­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of the home. If cit­i­zens can­not feel safe in their own homes, suf­fice to say - very lit­tle else in a so­ci­ety will func­tion as it should.”

Ma­haraj list­ed crime sta­tis­tics, in­clud­ing home in­va­sions, over the past decade.

“Be­hind these num­bers are re­al fam­i­lies and re­al trau­ma,” he added, de­tail­ing how cit­i­zens are trau­ma­tised.

He cit­ed two in­ci­dents this week in­volv­ing two em­ploy­ees at his past work­place and al­so cer­tain peo­ple at his cur­rent work­place.

“The eco­nom­ic and so­cial costs are stag­ger­ing. Crime costs T&T bil­lions an­nu­al­ly in se­cu­ri­ty ex­pen­di­tures and lost op­por­tu­ni­ties. Tourism rev­enues suf­fer by more than $200 mil­lion an­nu­al­ly and in­vestor con­fi­dence is un­der­mined.”

Ma­haraj said at the Trade Min­istry, one of the first re­al­i­ties he con­front­ed was that non-en­er­gy ex­ports ac­count­ed for on­ly 30 per cent of T&T’s ex­port earn­ings.
He said of­fi­cials meet week­ly to deal with this.

Ma­haraj added, “Re­cent­ly, while on pri­vate busi­ness in the US, I took the op­por­tu­ni­ty to ad­vance this agen­da. I met with se­nior ex­ec­u­tives of a ma­jor air­line, try­ing to en­cour­age them to con­sid­er hav­ing di­rect flights to To­ba­go.”

He said he out­lined many com­pelling ad­van­tages – T&T’s pris­tine nat­ur­al as­sets, the grow­ing tourism in­ter­est from North Amer­i­ca and Eu­rope, im­proved air­port fa­cil­i­ties and Gov­ern­ment’s com­mit­ment to de­vel­op­ing To­ba­go as a world-class tourism des­ti­na­tion.

“The ex­ec­u­tives were vis­i­bly im­pressed ‘cause I can mes­merise any­one. They all nod­ded. And I say, ‘this is a win!’”

But he said when it was their turn to re­spond, “Their pri­ma­ry con­cern was the crime sit­u­a­tion in TT. I was crest­fall­en.”

Ma­haraj added, “On that same trip, I arranged a meet­ing with the vice chair­man of Nu­cor, a ma­jor lo­cal in­vestor and crit­i­cal play­er since steel prod­ucts rep­re­sent our sin­gle largest non-en­er­gy ex­port cat­e­go­ry. I tried en­cour­ag­ing them to con­sid­er ex­pand­ing op­er­a­tions in Trinidad, sup­port­ed by the min­istry’s ex­ten­sive in­cen­tives.

“But when they got up to speak, first thing out of their mouth was the bru­tal mur­der of one of their em­ploy­ees in Trinidad, which has the com­pa­ny in Amer­i­ca trau­ma­tised to­day. They begged to de­cline my of­fer.”

Ma­haraj added, “This is what we’re fac­ing. These two en­coun­ters, in tourism and in­vest­ment, re­in­force the sober­ing truth: all our ef­forts in eco­nom­ic growth and di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion, our strate­gies, our tar­gets can be un­der­mined, and are be­ing un­der­mined if we fail to ad­dress the crime sit­u­a­tion de­ci­sive­ly.

“In­vestors will not risk their cap­i­tal. Air­lines will not risk their pas­sen­gers. Vis­i­tors will not risk their safe­ty.

“If we want to trans­form T&T in­to a tru­ly di­ver­si­fied, com­pet­i­tive and glob­al­ly re­spect­ed econ­o­my, we must demon­strate clear­ly and un­equiv­o­cal­ly that we’re tak­ing a hard-line, re­sults-dri­ven ap­proach to con­fronting crime.”

Giv­ing an ex­am­ple, he took re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for in­sist­ing on huge penal­ties for il­le­gal gam­bling, which he said dis­ap­peared af­ter the dra­con­ian mea­sures.

“Il­le­gal gam­bling is big­ger than drugs.”

Ma­haraj said do­mes­tic and for­eign in­vestors con­sid­er se­cu­ri­ty and rule of law when de­cid­ing where to put their mon­ey.

“If home in­va­sions and vi­o­lent rob­beries are ram­pant, what mes­sage does that send to a po­ten­tial in­vestor or a skilled ex­pa­tri­ate think­ing of re­lo­cat­ing? It sig­nals in­sta­bil­i­ty and risk.”

Ma­haraj not­ed the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty’s con­cerns that crime is a ma­jor de­ter­rent to en­tre­pre­neur­ship and is se­ri­ous­ly af­fect­ing busi­ness and in­vest­ment de­ci­sions.

He cit­ed Guardian Hold­ings’ CEO re­count­ing cas­es where in­vestors chose oth­er coun­tries over TT be­cause they didn’t want staff liv­ing and work­ing here.

“This bill sends a clear mes­sage: our homes are our sanc­tu­ar­ies, and any vi­o­la­tion of that sa­cred space will be met with the full force of the law.”