Lee An­na Ma­haraj

leean­na.ma­haraj

@guardian.co.tt

Some cit­i­zens of T&T are call­ing for Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Fitzger­ald Hinds, to step down from his post. This fol­lows the record-break­ing mur­der toll which is near­ing 600, and Hinds’ re­cent state­ment claim­ing that 70 per cent of the pop­u­la­tion does not sup­port him.

Yes­ter­day, Guardian Me­dia went out in­to the streets of Port-of-Spain to find out what cit­i­zens had to say.

Kevin El­lis, a Trinci­ty res­i­dent, said he is look­ing for­ward to the next elec­tion pe­ri­od be­cause he is hop­ing for a change.

“If he feels that way, he prob­a­bly needs to step down, and give some­body else a chance to run that de­part­ment, and hope­ful­ly the cen­sus would change be­cause if he feels that way, it means he would be un­able to do his job ef­fec­tive­ly,” he said.

Ava Solomon from Ari­ma said Hinds’ state­ment was un­sat­is­fac­to­ry.

“He is the one in charge, so he could come up with a bet­ter ex­cuse for the crime rate. Tell us what you in­tend to do, we haven’t heard that, how you in­tend to im­prove things, we haven’t heard that. So what he said is un­ac­cept­able,” she said.

Al­so from Ari­ma, Shelly-Ann Bal­con added: “Nah, I ain’t sup­port­ing him at all. Bet­ter could be done, much bet­ter could be done. The crime sit­u­a­tion is re­al­ly ter­ri­ble and I’m hop­ing next year please the Lord, it will be bet­ter, be­cause every year, it’s too much crime, and too many in­no­cent chil­dren get­ting their deaths.”

Pe­ter Joseph, a Tu­na­puna res­i­dent, shared the view that this coun­try is in need of change.

“Hinds is try­ing, but I think we need some­one with new ideas, and some­one more ed­u­cat­ed about na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty. We don’t need any more talk­ing, we need some­thing now, a quick fix,” he said.

From St James, Richard Pe­ters said: “What we need is change. Every­body is cry­ing for a change, and it’s about time. I think the younger folks should get their break.”

Mean­while, Ab­bie Au­dain-Su­perville, from Diego Mar­tin, said Min­is­ter Hinds needs more sup­port from the pub­lic.

“I think h is do­ing a great job so far, so I think he should get the sup­port that he needs. The coun­try would be in a much bet­ter place [if Hinds gets the sup­port],” she said.

An­oth­er cit­i­zen, Pe­ter Matthew George, felt the same way.

“I sup­port Mr Hinds, and I’m ask­ing the coun­try to help us sup­port him. I will sup­port him, but I’m say­ing the coun­try is not his own. We elect­ed him for du­ty. If the coun­try does not want hang­ing or pub­lic flog­ging, crime will in­crease. So, you and I must help him to hold up crim­i­nals. He’s not God,” he said.

Econ­o­mist and po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr In­dera Sage­wan said the min­is­ter is us­ing man­u­fac­tured da­ta to jus­ti­fy his poor per­for­mance.

“Peo­ple have no kind of in­ter­est in any kind of ridicu­lous da­ta, peo­ple want to feel a sense of safe­ty. Min­is­ter Hinds has been giv­en the job of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty which means his re­mit is to bring crime un­der con­trol, and if un­der his stew­ard­ship crime con­tin­ues to run away and con­tin­ues to wors­en, then ob­vi­ous­ly he is fail­ing at his job. There­fore, the coun­try has a le­git­i­mate right to ques­tion the le­git­i­ma­cy of his po­si­tion, in this con­text,” she said.

Sage­wan added that the gov­ern­ment has a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to make the cit­i­zens feel safe in this coun­try.

“In this coun­try now, it is not just about be­ing in the wrong place at the wrong time, it is about be­ing in the right place, which is the right place for you, but be­ing there at the wrong time. Be­cause the cit­i­zen can be any­where in this coun­try and can find them­selves col­lat­er­al dam­age by some­body sim­ply walk­ing in there and com­ing in to kill some­body else, and that has be­come our nor­mal.

“This is no way to live, and the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the Gov­ern­ment, and the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of those that we put for lead­ers is to make that bet­ter. Those are is­sues of which they fought the elec­tions, and we made a com­mit­ment there,” she said.

Sage­wan said Min­is­ter Hinds should con­sid­er step­ping down: “If who­ev­er is there can­not get the job done, then he does not have the ca­pac­i­ty to say I can’t get this job done, maybe I should step aside and let some­one else do it.

“And it is the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of who­ev­er has put him there to say I need to re­move you and put some­body else be­cause the cit­i­zen­ry de­serves bet­ter. The peo­ple of this coun­try de­serve safe­ty,” she said.

As of yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, the mur­der toll stood at 588.