TICKING CRIME BOMB

and a deadbeat government 

REMEMBER a few months ago when Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley spoke of making crime a public health issue? 

Like many others, I made out Rowley’s pronouncement as yet another lame bid at buying time and mamaguying the nation. 

Even the Guardian newspaper asked: “What does declaring crime a public health emergency really mean?” 

Not easily rebuffed, Rowley enlisted his Jamaican riding pardner Andrew Holness, who unleashed a treatise on crime – but no remedies. 

Holness returned the next day to his land, in which there were 1,423 killings last year. 

A fine one to give advice to T&T! 

But Holness said one thing that should resonate: “Those charged with leadership … must give leadership.” 

Rowley’s version of leadership is evidently to run from crises and to lift his head only to demean critics. 

In retreating to Tobago, Rowley is clearly not losing sleep on crime. 

Nor is he seemingly bothered by worsening poverty (80 per cent of the population living with less than $5,000 a month, according to the Central Bank), recurring floods, or the disastrous state of our roads. 

Oh, for sure, he would soon emerge, like seasonal Mayaro beach crabs. 

He would bamboozle the media, berate the opposition, and bully the few courageous commentators. 

Some, like politically-correct business organisations, would humble themselves in their cubby holes. 

Rowley may set up yet another committee to probe the crime epidemic, never mind that the woeful predictions of a Professor Selwyn Ryan-headed team a decade ago have come to pass. 

Crime “is a dagger aimed at the soft underbelly of Port of Spain,” Ryan said, and told of a generation of aimless youths with modern guns, drugs aplenty, lack of appreciation for life, and banditry as their chosen craft. 

All of Ryan’s dire forecasts have materialised. 

None of his purposeful recommendations have been implemented. 

Port of Spain is the most crime-wrecked capital city in the Caribbean, even if the government seeks to disparage the critical reports by the developed world. 

As statistics for violent crime are shattered, the Express newspaper captures the scenario well. 

“The government’s complete disconnect from the nation’s prevailing state of fear over crime can only mean it has given up and decided to leave the public to fend for itself against criminals.” 

Every man – and elderly citizen, disabled person, single parent, innocent child – for himself! 

Seventeen years after Stephen Cadiz led a “death march,” guns and criminal migrants still have easy entry, anti-gang laws are useless, and institutions, including the judiciary, are ineffective. 

And the police chief, poor fella, is a sitting duck. 

The Express says that “the failure at countering crime should be a source of shame to the entire Rowley administration.” 

But shame is not easily found in this deadbeat government. 

As Carnival’s Midnight Robber brags: “People may curse me but I have no shame.” 

The ticking crime bomb has T&T on the straight path to chaos and lawlessness, like blood-drenched Latin and Central American capitals. 

Anarchy is our next bus stop. 

Tiny former safe sanctuaries like Las Lomas are now besieged by drug-driven slayings and decapitated corpses, while the authorities can’t even boost intelligence-gathering, set up a police booth, and improve patrols. 

But soon we would hear of Rowley’s latest hare-brained scheme. 

Wait for it.