DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

Young peo­ple have tak­en Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert to task for the pro­posed ex­pan­sion re­cruits for the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice’s (TTPS) from 300 to 1,000 next year, with many call­ing for more proac­tive mea­sures to stem crime.

Im­bert’s $59 bil­lion Bud­get was as­sessed by 26 young peo­ple who par­tic­i­pat­ed in the Par­lia­ment’s first an­nu­al Youth Bud­get Talks yes­ter­day.

The fo­rum, which was mod­er­at­ed by one of four new­ly mint­ed In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors, Dr Shar­da Patasar, and for­mer na­tion­al youth par­lia­men­tar­i­ans Khaleem Ali and Ruqayyah Scott, al­lowed at­ten­dees to have their say on the fis­cal pack­age.

Al­though the State’s ef­forts to re­duce crime were ac­knowl­edged, many be­lieved more could be done to strength­en the TTPS. Youth par­lia­ment alum­ni Alexan­dra Ghany felt mon­ey should be spent on foren­sic train­ing.

“I am not op­posed to in­creas­ing the po­lice force, just not to this pro­por­tion, con­sid­er­ing that the solve rate for mur­ders last year was 12 per cent. I think that there is a prob­lem in the lack of foren­sic sci­en­tists in Trinidad,” she said.

Mean­while, St Joseph’s Con­vent stu­dent Gi­an­na Hor­sham al­so de­nounced the hir­ing of more po­lice of­fi­cers. In­stead, she said those al­ready there ought to be whipped in­to shape.

“I don’t think that they should nec­es­sar­i­ly al­lo­cate mon­ey to the in­crease in the amount of peo­ple that there are, but they should make sure that the cur­rent work­force is work­ing ef­fi­cient­ly and pro­duc­tive­ly,” she stat­ed.

As for the pur­chas­ing of more equip­ment, youth par­lia­ment alum­ni Kriss Ho­sein said more at­ten­tion should be placed on mak­ing the ad­min­is­tra­tive de­part­ments of the TTPS more ef­fi­cient.

“I think the in­creased fund­ing to the equip­ment and so on to the po­lice, I don’t think it’s a bad move. What I think that we need to look at again is some of the sys­tem­at­ic is­sues like the back­log of cas­es un­der the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al,” he said.

Ade­o­la Pe­ters, who is a man­ag­er at the non-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tion Mind­wise Project, al­so dis­agreed with plans to pur­chase more ve­hi­cles.

“The ve­hi­cles for the de­fence forces (po­lice ser­vice), I don’t think that mon­ey should be utilised there. I think in or­der to build the pub­lic’s con­fi­dence, it should be more on dig­i­tal things, so those cam­eras that are on their bod­ies...so the pub­lic can have that ac­count­abil­i­ty,” Pe­ters said.

The mod­er­a­tors al­so took part in the dis­cus­sion, dif­fer­ing on the pro­pos­al to raise the re­tire­ment age from 60 to 65. Ali said it was a plas­ter to a sur­gi­cal wound, as it would not close the gap in the pen­sion fund cre­at­ed by the grow­ing age­ing pop­u­la­tion. He said this co­hort will con­tin­ue to ex­pand with time and the is­sue would per­sist.

Scott, how­ev­er, rec­om­mend­ed that the Gov­ern­ment shift its at­ten­tion to col­lect­ing na­tion­al in­sur­ance from er­rant busi­ness own­ers and em­ploy­ees who fail to pay their tax­es.

The min­i­mum wage was al­so a point of dis­cus­sion. Patasar and Ghany both agreed it was a step in the right di­rec­tion. How­ev­er, the school­girl did not be­lieve the hike was suf­fi­cient to deal with the ris­ing cost of liv­ing.

The school sup­ply grant and the stan­dard­i­s­a­tion of text­book poli­cies were ap­plaud­ed. How­ev­er, there were sug­ges­tions that the Gov­ern­ment con­sid­er dig­i­tal books.

More­over, some par­tic­i­pants lament­ed the lack of at­ten­tion placed on is­sues such as home­less­ness, men­tal health, the lack of guid­ance coun­cil­lors in all schools, and prop­er­ty tax.

On the is­sue of cli­mate change and the en­er­gy sec­tor, To­ba­go Youth Coun­cil mem­ber Dayre­on Mitchell called for CNG sta­tions to be es­tab­lished in To­ba­go.

“I would have placed more em­pha­sis on the en­er­gy sec­tor be­cause in To­ba­go, we don’t even have any­where that ve­hi­cles with CNG can re­ceive CNG. The on­ly place that has CNG in To­ba­go right now is ac­tu­al­ly with­in Cove and that’s for PTSC bus­es,” he said.

Patasar said she in­tends to take par­tic­i­pants’ con­cerns to par­lia­men­tar­i­ans to en­sure that the youth bud­get talk is more than just a con­ver­sa­tion, but some­thing that can pro­duce re­sults.