Ameen backs State of Emergency amid crime response

Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Khadi­jah Ameen has sup­port­ed the de­ci­sion by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to de­clare a State of Emer­gency in re­sponse to or­gan­ised crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty.

Ameen said the de­ci­sion forms part of a strat­e­gy to pro­tect com­mu­ni­ties. She stat­ed that lead­er­ship re­quires firm ac­tion to safe­guard cit­i­zens.

Ameen re­ferred to fig­ures re­port­ed by News­day which show mur­ders fell from 626 in 2024 to 369 in 2025, a 42 per cent de­cline and the low­est lev­el in ten years.

She said the de­cline re­sult­ed from the work of the pro­tec­tive ser­vices sup­port­ed by na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty poli­cies and po­lit­i­cal sup­port to ad­dress or­gan­ised crime.

She said po­lice of­fi­cers, sol­diers and in­tel­li­gence units worked to dis­man­tle crim­i­nal net­works and re­store safe­ty in com­mu­ni­ties.

Ameen al­so crit­i­cised the ap­proach of the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion. She said hes­i­ta­tion and re­spons­es to crime al­lowed crim­i­nal net­works to ex­pand and com­mu­ni­ties to face the con­se­quences.

Ameen stat­ed the ad­min­is­tra­tion is com­mit­ted to re­vers­ing that tra­jec­to­ry through lead­er­ship and co­or­di­nat­ed na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures.

She said crime re­mains a na­tion­al chal­lenge but point­ed to im­prove­ment linked to en­force­ment and pol­i­cy di­rec­tion.

She reaf­firmed sup­port for the State of Emer­gency and called on cit­i­zens to co­op­er­ate with law en­force­ment. She said ac­tion that pre­vents loss of life is jus­ti­fied.