Confederation of Regional Business Chambers urges urgent overhaul of national security system

The Con­fed­er­a­tion of Re­gion­al Busi­ness Cham­bers (CR­BC) is call­ing for ur­gent na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty re­form and struc­tured in­ter­na­tion­al sup­port, warn­ing that re­cent de­vel­op­ments, in­clud­ing breach­es and op­er­a­tional fail­ures with­in the se­cu­ri­ty sys­tem, are deep­en­ing pub­lic fear and erod­ing con­fi­dence in dai­ly life.

The call comes in the wake of a vi­o­lent week­end un­der the State of Emer­gency, with the or­gan­i­sa­tion urg­ing a shift away from re­ac­tive mea­sures to­ward sus­tained, sys­tem-wide re­form backed by glob­al ex­per­tise and stronger in­sti­tu­tion­al ac­count­abil­i­ty.

Ac­cord­ing to the CR­BC, the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion re­flects more than iso­lat­ed in­ci­dents. It points to struc­tur­al weak­ness­es that re­quire mod­erni­sa­tion across in­tel­li­gence, polic­ing, foren­sic ca­pac­i­ty, and in­ter­nal over­sight. The or­gan­i­sa­tion stressed that the mo­ment de­mands co­op­er­a­tion rather than blame.

“Crime and se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns are not new, but re­cent de­vel­op­ments, in­clud­ing in­ter­nal breach­es and op­er­a­tional fail­ures, have un­der­scored the ur­gency for mod­erni­sa­tion, stronger sys­tems, and en­hanced ac­count­abil­i­ty with­in the Trinidad and To­ba­go se­cu­ri­ty sys­tem,” the CR­BC stat­ed.

The busi­ness body said the im­pact of crime now ex­tends well be­yond sta­tis­tics and of­fi­cial re­ports, af­fect­ing the psy­cho­log­i­cal and so­cial fab­ric of the coun­try. It warned that com­mu­ni­ties are be­com­ing in­creas­ing­ly with­drawn, with move­ment pat­terns and dai­ly rou­tines chang­ing due to fear.

It said nightlife has de­clined, restau­rants and recre­ation­al ac­tiv­i­ty have slowed, and once-ac­tive busi­ness dis­tricts now op­er­ate un­der con­straints shaped by se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns. In­di­vid­u­als, par­tic­u­lar­ly those work­ing or liv­ing alone, are ad­just­ing how they move and con­duct dai­ly ac­tiv­i­ties.

The CR­BC said this rep­re­sents a broad­er na­tion­al is­sue.

“This is not just a se­cu­ri­ty is­sue, it is a na­tion­al qual­i­ty of life is­sue,” the or­gan­i­sa­tion stat­ed, adding that fam­i­lies now car­ry the bur­den of con­stant con­cern for safe­ty.

While ac­knowl­edg­ing fis­cal and struc­tur­al lim­i­ta­tions fac­ing the State, the CR­BC said the scale and per­sis­tence of the prob­lem re­quire ur­gency. It warned that slow or in­cre­men­tal re­spons­es risk fur­ther ero­sion of pub­lic con­fi­dence.

It al­so ar­gued that tem­po­rary mea­sures, in­clud­ing States of Emer­gency, are not suf­fi­cient to ad­dress un­der­ly­ing weak­ness­es in the sys­tem.

In­stead, the or­gan­i­sa­tion is urg­ing what it de­scribes as struc­tur­al trans­for­ma­tion sup­port­ed by in­ter­na­tion­al part­ner­ships.

These in­clude strate­gic co­op­er­a­tion with in­ter­na­tion­al agen­cies and al­lied coun­tries to pro­vide tech­ni­cal as­sis­tance in in­tel­li­gence-led polic­ing, foren­sic in­ves­ti­ga­tion, and re­spons­es to or­gan­ised crime. The CR­BC al­so called for mod­ernised sys­tems such as digi­tised firearms track­ing, in­te­grat­ed crime data­bas­es, and stronger ac­count­abil­i­ty tools.

It fur­ther rec­om­mend­ed con­tin­u­ous vet­ting and im­proved re­cruit­ment stan­dards for na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty per­son­nel; along­side spe­cialised train­ing aligned with in­ter­na­tion­al best prac­tice. In­de­pen­dent ex­ter­nal au­dits and ad­vi­so­ry sup­port were al­so pro­posed to strength­en trans­paren­cy and in­sti­tu­tion­al in­tegri­ty.

The busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, it said, con­tin­ues to shoul­der a dual bur­den, fund­ing na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty through tax­a­tion while al­so in­vest­ing heav­i­ly in pri­vate pro­tec­tion due to ris­ing con­cerns.

Ac­cord­ing to the CR­BC, this re­in­forces the need for a more ef­fi­cient and ac­count­able se­cu­ri­ty sys­tem ca­pa­ble of de­liv­er­ing mea­sur­able re­sults.

The or­gan­i­sa­tion stressed that re­form is not sole­ly de­pen­dent on fi­nan­cial re­sources, but on lead­er­ship, dis­ci­pline, and na­tion­al com­mit­ment.

It is al­so call­ing for struc­tured en­gage­ment be­tween na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty lead­er­ship, the pri­vate sec­tor, and civ­il so­ci­ety to en­sure re­form ef­forts re­main co­or­di­nat­ed and re­sults dri­ven.

“The safe­ty of our cit­i­zens, the pro­tec­tion of our busi­ness­es, and the sta­bil­i­ty of our coun­try de­mand ur­gent and unit­ed ac­tion,” the CR­BC stat­ed, adding that the coun­try must move de­ci­sive­ly to strength­en sys­tems and in­cor­po­rate both lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al ex­per­tise to re­store pub­lic trust and se­cure the fu­ture of the coun­try.