Chaguanas Chamber reacts to ZOSO Bill failure

Shas­tri Boodan

Free­lance Con­trib­u­tor

Pres­i­dent of the Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce (CCIC), Bal­dath Ma­haraj, has re­newed calls for stronger and more dis­rup­tive se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures in Cen­tral Trinidad, fol­low­ing the fail­ure of the Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tion (ZOSO) Bill.

While ac­knowl­edg­ing the out­come of the par­lia­men­tary process, Ma­haraj said the Cham­ber re­mains deeply con­cerned about the se­cu­ri­ty re­al­i­ties fac­ing busi­ness­es and res­i­dents in the Ch­agua­nas area.

“Whilst we ac­knowl­edge and re­spect the out­come of the vote in the Sen­ate, we main­tain our stance that the se­cu­ri­ty cri­sis in Cen­tral Trinidad re­quires more than nor­mal polic­ing,” Ma­haraj stat­ed.

He not­ed that de­spite re­ports of a na­tion­al de­cline in crime, mem­bers of the Cham­ber con­tin­ue to ex­pe­ri­ence fear and un­cer­tain­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly as the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion ac­counts for a dis­pro­por­tion­ate num­ber of homi­cides.

“Re­cent da­ta in­di­cat­ing a na­tion­al down­ward trend in crime of­fers lit­tle com­fort to our mem­bers,” he said, adding that the fig­ures sug­gest Cen­tral Trinidad is be­com­ing “a pre­ferred des­ti­na­tion for crim­i­nal re­lo­ca­tion.”

Ma­haraj stressed that the Cham­ber be­lieves a tra­di­tion­al, busi­ness-as-usu­al ap­proach to law en­force­ment is no longer ad­e­quate giv­en the cur­rent cli­mate. He ar­gued that high-im­pact, dis­rup­tive mea­sures are nec­es­sary to re­claim com­mu­ni­ties and pro­tect Ch­agua­nas’ rapid­ly ex­pand­ing re­tail sec­tor.

“The safe­ty of the Bor­ough of Ch­agua­nas is non-ne­go­tiable,” he said. “We con­tin­ue to sup­port the im­ple­men­ta­tion of dis­rup­tive mea­sures where nec­es­sary—those de­signed to re­claim our streets and en­sure that the rapid growth of our re­tail hub is not over­shad­owed by a surge in vi­o­lent ac­tiv­i­ty.”

At the same time, the CCIC pres­i­dent em­pha­sized that en­force­ment alone is not enough. He called for a com­bined strat­e­gy that in­cludes tar­get­ed so­cial pro­grammes aimed at pre­vent­ing youth from en­ter­ing crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty.

“We con­tin­ue to ad­vo­cate for a swift re­sponse that com­bines ag­gres­sive, dis­rup­tive law en­force­ment tac­tics with the tar­get­ed so­cial pro­grams nec­es­sary to pre­vent the next gen­er­a­tion of of­fend­ers,” Ma­haraj said.

He made it clear that the Cham­ber is not seek­ing to place blame but in­stead views na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty as a shared re­spon­si­bil­i­ty be­tween the State, the pri­vate sec­tor and civ­il so­ci­ety.

“Our com­mit­ment re­mains to en­sure that the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion re­ceives the man­pow­er, tech­nol­o­gy, and leg­isla­tive sup­port re­quired to match its sta­tus as a crit­i­cal eco­nom­ic en­gine,” he said.

Ma­haraj al­so sig­naled the Cham­ber’s will­ing­ness to par­tic­i­pate in on­go­ing dis­cus­sions on crime-fight­ing strate­gies and leg­isla­tive re­form.

“We are ready to be part of any fo­rum that seeks to re­fine se­cu­ri­ty leg­is­la­tion to ad­dress crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties,” he said, ex­press­ing hope that col­lab­o­ra­tive ef­forts would help re­store peace and con­fi­dence in Ch­agua­nas.

“Let’s aim to re­turn a sense of peace to Ch­agua­nas, en­sur­ing our busi­ness­es thrive and our res­i­dents can once again walk with­out fear.”