Business groups urge evidence-based decision on SoE extension

Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Busi­ness groups across Trinidad and To­ba­go are urg­ing the Gov­ern­ment to jus­ti­fy any ex­ten­sion of the State of Emer­gency (SoE) with clear ev­i­dence of re­sults, stronger trans­paren­cy from law en­force­ment and firm safe­guards to pro­tect con­sti­tu­tion­al rights and civ­il lib­er­ties—while warn­ing that pro­longed emer­gency mea­sures must not be­come a sub­sti­tute for long-term crime strat­e­gy.

The call comes from the Greater Tu­na­puna Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce (GT­CIC), Greater San Fer­nan­do Cham­ber of Com­merce (GS­FCC), Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce (CCIC) Su­per­mar­kets As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (SATT) and the Con­fed­er­a­tion of Re­gion­al Busi­ness Cham­bers (CR­BC).

Mean­while, the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al’s Of­fice yes­ter­day dis­missed so­cial me­dia claims that the SoE had end­ed.

The AG’s Of­fice stat­ed that the SoE, which was an­nounced on March 3, was ex­tend­ed by Par­lia­ment on March 13 for three months and is due to ex­pire at mid­night on June 17.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­cent­ly said the SoE will be ex­tend­ed by a fur­ther three months if the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil rec­om­mends it.

With the coun­cil ex­pect­ed to meet “soon” on the is­sue, there was no re­sponse yes­ter­day from At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie to queries from Guardian Me­dia, in­clud­ing when ex­act­ly the meet­ing will be held.

Busi­ness groups out­line con­di­tions for ex­ten­sion

GT­CIC pres­i­dent Ra­mon Gre­go­rio: Any SoE ex­ten­sion must be ev­i­dence-based, pro­por­tion­ate and tied to clear se­cu­ri­ty gains and eco­nom­ic con­fi­dence.

GS­FCC pres­i­dent Ki­ran Singh: SoE de­ci­sions must re­ly on mea­sur­able out­comes and not re­place long-term crime pre­ven­tion, while safe­guard­ing eco­nom­ic sta­bil­i­ty and cit­i­zens’ rights.

CCIC pres­i­dent Bal­dath Ma­haraj: The cham­ber sup­ports an ex­ten­sion but wants the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice to pub­lish TTPS achieve­ments to se­cure pub­lic buy-in.

SATT pres­i­dent Bion­di Bachew: As­so­ci­a­tion sup­ports a con­di­tion­al ex­ten­sion while urg­ing a broad­er, long-term crime strat­e­gy and al­ter­na­tive ap­proach­es be­yond ZOSO.

CR­BC pres­i­dent Vivek Char­ran: Con­fed­er­a­tion sup­ports ex­tend­ing the SoE, say­ing it helps con­tain crime and strength­ens po­lice in­ves­tiga­tive pow­ers.