Padarath urges Opposition to back ZOSO Bill

Shas­tri Boodan

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter and Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Bar­ry Padarath is call­ing on the pub­lic to lob­by the Op­po­si­tion to sup­port any mea­sures aimed at fight­ing crime, whether through leg­is­la­tion or op­er­a­tional ini­tia­tives.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia on Sat­ur­day, Padarath said the Gov­ern­ment would rein­tro­duce the Law Re­form (Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions) (Spe­cial Se­cu­ri­ty and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Mea­sures) Bill, 2026, in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

“I urge the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to call up­on the Op­po­si­tion to lend its sup­port to any crime-fight­ing mech­a­nism, whether it’s leg­isla­tive­ly or op­er­a­tional­ly,” he said.

Padarath was speak­ing be­fore the start of Ganesh Ut­sav cel­e­bra­tions at his Cou­va South con­stituen­cy of­fice on Cam­den Road.

He said the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty had made a com­pre­hen­sive state­ment in Par­lia­ment on Fri­day re­gard­ing the planned rein­tro­duc­tion of the ZOSO Bill.

“We be­lieve that it is one of the ar­eas in our ar­se­nal in the con­tin­u­a­tion in the fight against crime,” Padarath said.

He not­ed that the cur­rent State of Emer­gency (SoE) is due to end on Sep­tem­ber 17, but said the Gov­ern­ment was work­ing on oth­er crime-fight­ing mea­sures.

“While on the 17th (Sep­tem­ber 2026) the State of Emer­gency will come to an end and much more will be said about the State of Emer­gency, the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty, to­geth­er with the Min­is­ter of De­fence and the Ho­n­ourable At­tor­ney Gen­er­al have been work­ing as­sid­u­ous­ly in terms of oth­er ar­eas of crime-fight­ing mech­a­nisms that can be im­ple­ment­ed both op­er­a­tional­ly and through leg­is­la­tion,” he said.

Padarath de­scribed the ZOSO Bill as one of sev­er­al pieces of leg­is­la­tion be­ing pur­sued by the Gov­ern­ment that would com­bine na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures with so­cial de­vel­op­ment.

“There­fore you get a holis­tic ap­proach to­wards the fight against crime,” he said.

Padarath said the Gov­ern­ment had been proac­tive in iden­ti­fy­ing both leg­isla­tive and op­er­a­tional sup­port for its crime-fight­ing strat­e­gy.

“I’m al­most cer­tain that over the next cou­ple of days you will hear a lot more about the op­er­a­tional­is­ing of that ZOSO Bill as well as what it will en­tail and what dif­fer­ence there will be from the last time it was in­tro­duced in­to the Par­lia­ment com­pared to this time that the Ho­n­ourable At­tor­ney Gen­er­al will pi­lot when he brings the Bill to the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives,” he said.

Asked whether the Gov­ern­ment ex­pect­ed Op­po­si­tion sup­port for the leg­is­la­tion, Padarath was crit­i­cal of the Op­po­si­tion’s pre­vi­ous po­si­tion.

“The Op­po­si­tion has been ob­struc­tion­ist from day one,” he said.

“They are not in­ter­est­ed about na­tion build­ing and there­fore we plan for all sce­nar­ios.”

Padarath said the Gov­ern­ment was not de­pend­ing on Op­po­si­tion sup­port, adding that its fo­cus was on do­ing what was in the best in­ter­est of the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

He al­so ex­pressed sup­port for the in­tro­duc­tion of ZOSO mea­sures in his own con­stituen­cy, say­ing Cou­va South had ex­pe­ri­enced mur­ders and oth­er se­ri­ous crimes.

“And if it can bring about a change and a re­duc­tion in that, Cou­va South is pre­pared to have ZOSO in our own con­stituen­cy,” he said.

Al­so ad­dress­ing the gath­er­ing were In­di­an High Com­mis­sion­er Pradeep Singh Ra­jpuro­hit and Works Min­is­ter Jear­lean John, who de­liv­ered greet­ings to mark the oc­ca­sion.