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Saturday, July 26, 2025

T&T Chamber calls for action on crime

by

1990 days ago
20200214
Trinidad and Tobago Chamber of Commerce CEO, Gabriel Faria

Trinidad and Tobago Chamber of Commerce CEO, Gabriel Faria

The time for talk is over and ac­tion is need­ed on the crime cri­sis.

“This sit­u­a­tion is af­fect­ing busi­ness and mi­gra­tions are oc­cur­ring,” T&T Cham­ber CEO Gabriel Faria said yes­ter­day.

“Whether the rea­son for killings and oth­er neg­a­tive de­vel­op­ments is gang-re­lat­ed or oth­er crim­i­nal pur­pos­es, the pop­u­la­tion is be­ing taxed to the brink.

“In the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion, peo­ple take less com­fort to know some­thing is gang-re­lat­ed or oth­er rea­sons when what they want so­lu­tions.”

The Cham­ber CEO ex­pressed deep con­cern at the crime sit­u­a­tion as up to yes­ter­day the mur­der toll had reached ap­prox­i­mate­ly 71—46 mur­ders in Jan­u­ary and the rest this month. He won­dered what is Gov­ern­ment’s crime plan.

“We’re in a cri­sis. We recog­nise a plan can’t be de­vel­oped overnight but cer­tain things can be done with avail­able re­sources. Why aren’t we see­ing in­creased use of the De­fence Force at least?” Faria asked.

“Our mem­bers, as well as non-mem­bers, tell us they see no army pres­ence in their ar­eas un­less sol­diers are un­der­cov­er. We had been told at one point that 50 per cent of the De­fence Force is as­sist­ing po­lice.

“How­ev­er, the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er said dur­ing a Par­lia­men­tary com­mit­tee meet­ing that the Army’s in­put was less than 500. In Trinidad and To­ba­go’s dire predica­ment, we have to stop pro­tect­ing our turf and act.

“At this point, where Trinidad and To­ba­go’s im­age has be­come one of an in­creas­ing­ly-vi­o­lent coun­try, peo­ple aren’t dwelling as much on what’s caus­ing it as on the need to have some­thing done.

“That in­volves mo­bil­is­ing re­sources ap­pro­pri­ate­ly. I don’t think it’s con­so­la­tion to the fam­i­lies of mur­der vic­tims—and it doesn’t pro­vide any as­sur­ance of safe­ty to any­one else—that a sit­u­a­tion was gang-re­lat­ed.

“All the fam­i­ly will know is their broth­er or son or moth­er or fa­ther is dead.

“The over­all sit­u­a­tion is im­pact­ing busi­ness. At a func­tion on Tues­day, a busi­ness­man re­vealed to us a rob­bery at­tempt was made on his home when his fam­i­ly was there.

“He said they’re mi­grat­ing since the sit­u­a­tion now isn’t worth it. That sort of sen­ti­ment is in­creas­ing.”

Op­po­si­tion MP Gan­ga Singh, not­ing that mur­der is the most se­ri­ous crime, added: “Gov­ern­ment ap­pears chal­lenged in the face of the mur­der­ous on­slaught and ap­pears to have sur­ren­dered to the crim­i­nal el­e­ment.

“Trinidad and To­ba­go seem on the verge of a takeover by that el­e­ment giv­en the fact there had been over 2,000 mur­ders pre­vi­ous­ly.

“There used to be the feel­ing in Trinidad and To­ba­go that on­ly those in­volved in crime and gang-re­lat­ed ac­tiv­i­ty are at risk. That no longer seems to be the case.

“The at­mos­phere of in­creas­ing crime has cre­at­ed fear that in this new nor­mal sit­u­a­tion any­one can be­come col­lat­er­al dam­age.

“If the sit­u­a­tion is gang-re­lat­ed, then there must be clear an­swers on what’s be­ing done to get it un­der con­trol and re­store some sense of se­cu­ri­ty in com­mu­ni­ties.

“Once this is lost, it’s hard to re­gain. This is the end of the term, peo­ple aren’t wait­ing very long for an­swers.”


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