Penny: PNM willing to work with Govt to fight crime

Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­[email protected]

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les says the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) re­mains will­ing to work with Gov­ern­ment in the fight against crime, but warned that co­op­er­a­tion should not be mis­tak­en for un­con­di­tion­al sup­port, as she crit­i­cised the ad­min­is­tra­tion’s re­quest for a fur­ther three-month ex­ten­sion of the State of Emer­gency (SoE).

Con­tribut­ing to Wednes­day’s par­lia­men­tary de­bate on the ex­ten­sion mo­tion, Beck­les said crime af­fects all cit­i­zens re­gard­less of po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tion and re­quires a unit­ed na­tion­al re­sponse. How­ev­er, she main­tained that Gov­ern­ment had failed to pro­vide suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence that the con­tin­ued use of emer­gency pow­ers was the an­swer.

“I have said it be­fore and I will say it again, that the Op­po­si­tion is will­ing to work with the Gov­ern­ment,” Beck­les told the House.

“But guess what? I nev­er hear the Gov­ern­ment say they’re will­ing to work with the Op­po­si­tion.”

She added, “Don’t feel that you could im­ply any threat to sug­gest to me that be­cause any­thing you bring, I sup­port it. That is not what it means.”

Beck­les said there was broad agree­ment that crime re­mained one of the coun­try’s most press­ing chal­lenges, and in­sist­ed no re­spon­si­ble par­lia­men­tar­i­an could de­ny the se­ri­ous­ness of the is­sue.

“No right-think­ing mem­ber of par­lia­ment sit­ting here to­day would say that there isn’t a con­cern about crime. We all know that that is a gen­uine con­cern,” she said.

Beck­les ar­gued that crim­i­nals do not dis­crim­i­nate based on pol­i­tics and urged lead­ers to avoid turn­ing crime in­to a par­ti­san is­sue.

“Bul­lets do not ask whether a vic­tim sup­ports the UNC or whether a vic­tim sup­ports the PNM. Crim­i­nals do not check con­stituen­cy bound­aries be­fore they strike,” she said.

She point­ed to com­mu­ni­ties across the coun­try that have been af­fect­ed by vi­o­lent crime, say­ing the scourge ex­tends be­yond tra­di­tion­al crime hotspots.

“Whether it’s Erin, whether it’s Moru­ga, whether it’s Pe­nal, whether it’s Mor­vant, whether it’s Ch­agua­nas, whether it’s Laven­tille, crime has been all over Trinidad and To­ba­go. And we have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty as mem­bers of par­lia­ment to work to­geth­er to deal with that scourge of crime,” Beck­les said.

De­spite that will­ing­ness to col­lab­o­rate, Beck­les said the Op­po­si­tion could not sup­port the ex­ten­sion be­cause Gov­ern­ment had not pre­sent­ed a clear crime-fight­ing strat­e­gy or mea­sur­able ob­jec­tives.

She ques­tioned re­peat­ed claims by min­is­ters that crime was de­clin­ing and called for greater trans­paren­cy re­gard­ing the ad­min­is­tra­tion’s plans.

“The Gov­ern­ment nei­ther has a crime plan, an an­ti-crime plan, or a strat­e­gy to deal with crime,” she said.

Ac­cord­ing to Beck­les, sim­ply cit­ing re­duc­tions in mur­ders and se­ri­ous crimes was not enough.

“If it is you have a prop­er im­ple­men­ta­tion strat­e­gy, you must be able to tell the pub­lic what is your tar­get. Tell us what is your tar­get. You are go­ing to re­duce se­ri­ous crimes by X. You’re go­ing to re­duce what­ev­er it is you’re go­ing to do by X,” she said.

She al­so chal­lenged state­ments from Gov­ern­ment min­is­ters re­gard­ing ar­rests and charges dur­ing the SoE, say­ing more de­tailed in­for­ma­tion was need­ed to prop­er­ly as­sess whether the emer­gency mea­sures were achiev­ing their in­tend­ed ob­jec­tives.

Beck­les fur­ther ac­cused Gov­ern­ment of re­ly­ing ex­ces­sive­ly on emer­gency pow­ers and re­stric­tions rather than ad­dress­ing the root caus­es of crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty.

Re­fer­ring to reg­u­la­tions lim­it­ing protests near key state in­sti­tu­tions, Beck­les ar­gued that the ad­min­is­tra­tion ap­peared in­creas­ing­ly in­tol­er­ant of dis­sent.

“This Gov­ern­ment is afraid of every­body,” she said, ac­cus­ing of­fi­cials of us­ing reg­u­la­tions and leg­is­la­tion to in­tim­i­date cit­i­zens and dis­cour­age crit­i­cism.

Beck­les al­so took aim at At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie over re­marks he made ear­li­er in the de­bate con­cern­ing al­leged crim­i­nal el­e­ments and ref­er­ences to the so-called “one per cent.”

She chal­lenged the AG to take any ev­i­dence of wrong­do­ing to law en­force­ment au­thor­i­ties rather than mak­ing al­le­ga­tions un­der par­lia­men­tary priv­i­lege.

“If you have any ev­i­dence against me, take it to the po­lice,” she said.

“Don’t on­ly come and use par­lia­men­tary priv­i­lege to make all kinds of ac­cu­sa­tions when you know you have no ev­i­dence.”

Beck­les said the Op­po­si­tion’s ob­jec­tion to the ex­ten­sion was not root­ed in a re­fusal to con­front crime but in Gov­ern­ment’s fail­ure to jus­ti­fy why ad­di­tion­al emer­gency pow­ers were nec­es­sary.

“We have a dif­fi­cul­ty in sup­port­ing this ex­ten­sion be­cause we have a firm view that the Gov­ern­ment has not pro­vid­ed us with the in­for­ma­tion, the ev­i­dence, and they have not con­vinced us that this is go­ing to deal with the is­sue of crime,” she said.

“We are ask­ing the Gov­ern­ment to please, at some point in time, say to the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go, what is your plan to deal with crime? What is your strat­e­gy to deal with crime?”