THE GREAT CRIME HYPOCRISY

TALKS between the Government and Opposition are not necessary to avert the spate of home invasions.

Same with other crimes – homicides, robberies, assaults, kidnappings, et al.

There are anti-crime laws aplenty.

The current administration has introduced or amended several pieces of legislation, to add to age-old laws.

Remember when showboating Attorney General Faris Al Rawi bragged each week about “a menu of measures”?

To combat a crime scourge, Trinidad and Tobago is as equipped with legislation as any other nation.

In addition, Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley engaged Caricom leaders in a two-day conference, dubbed the plague “a public health issue”, and leaned on the Americans for support.

And still, T&T remains bloodied, besieged by armed and merciless young thugs who pounce at will, converting children and senior citizens alike into hopeless victims.

Vulnerable business and property-owning nationals are on the run, seeking to migrate in order to protect their respective families from rampant criminals.

Many have abandoned their homes and small enterprises and resettled in North America, where State institutions are much more reliable and efficient.

It is easily evident that laws are not the missing dimension in T&T’s anti-crime armory.

And the only role of the Opposition in combating crime is legislative support for relevant Bills.

The Opposition does not have executive authority.

The elected Government has the sole power to take policy decisions, to hire and fire law enforcement officials, and to provide appropriate resources.

In any fair analysis, stakeholders would appreciate that responsibility for national security rests with the ruling regime, which must implement effective measures to ensure safety and well-being.

But Trinidad and Tobago is no longer a land of intellectual honesty.

Many have been browbeaten by the gruff and hard-boiled national leader, and the entrenched business-owning class is even more terrified.

The “validating elite,” as Lloyd Best dubbed the minority business overlords, are enjoying monopolies in several key sectors, while the Monopolies Commission looks the other way.

Big business is churning out historic profits, with billion-dollar annual returns now commonplace.

A large retailer just reported another giant leap in profit.

That organisation had hurriedly entered into the trades of various small and medium-sized businesses while those operations were closed during the long Covid-19 months.

Economies of scale have permitted the large retailer to flourish while many small firms have closed their doors.

Well-placed operatives are lapping up lucrative contracts for the provision of goods and services to the State sector.

Like everyone else, the business sector is assailed by crime.

The most graphic example is the collapse of Port of Spain from the most commercially thriving business district in the Caribbean to its current abandoned, threadbare look.

The once-popular custom of street shopping has been zapped by dangerous criminals.

Business operators have to invest in costly human and technical crime-fighting tools.

So, the yoke of crime is weighing heavily on the world of commerce.  

But the dreadful fear of confronting the Government has led many entrenched business operatives to cast a red herring net that embraces the Opposition.

The Government and Opposition must do something about crime, they clamour.

That nebulous statement permits the bleeding hearts to voice their distress while not disturbing the political structure that has them smiling to the bank.

It is Trinidad and Tobago’s great crime hypocrisy.