Tobago Business Chamber wants a further police shake-up

Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

With an­oth­er mur­der just days af­ter the hi­er­ar­chy of the To­ba­go Di­vi­sion of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) was changed, the chair­man of the To­ba­go Busi­ness Cham­ber Mar­tin George is call­ing for a fur­ther shake-up of the po­lice on the is­land.

George, who at­tend­ed the Cit­i­zen’s Sum­mit on Crime and Vi­o­lence at the TML Hall, St Joseph, yes­ter­day, said re­plac­ing act­ing ACP Col­lis Hazel and Snr Supt Rod­hill Kirk with ACP Os­wain Subero and Snr Supt Earl Elie two weeks ago was the first step in the right di­rec­tion.

“That is a start, def­i­nite­ly. You can’t keep do­ing the same thing over and over and ex­pect dif­fer­ent re­sults so chang­ing the lead­er­ship at the top is a start,” he said.

How­ev­er, he wants more of­fi­cers to be shuf­fled as they have be­come too com­pla­cent. George ex­pressed con­cern about the is­land’s most re­cent mur­der, the shoot­ing death of Nicholas Mitchell in Ar­gyle.

Mitchell, 32, was asleep when gun­men en­tered his home through a win­dow and shot him. A day ear­li­er, Bran­don Ed­wards was gunned down while on his way home af­ter lim­ing at a bar.

George said, “You need some new blood, new ideas, you need new in­vig­o­ra­tion. They need to look at ro­tat­ing more of­fi­cers not just the head, go down the line, check those who have been there for decades ro­tate them and bring in new blood and new ideas.”

He ex­plained that this will ad­dress the claims of nepo­tism and favouritism where some of­fi­cers are afraid to prop­er­ly in­ves­ti­gate mat­ters in­volv­ing rel­a­tives and friends. He said new of­fi­cers un­fa­mil­iar with the peo­ple would be bet­ter suit­ed to take over.

George, a for­mer mem­ber of the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PolSC), added that the po­lice ex­ec­u­tive needs to be held to ac­count, as is its con­sti­tu­tion­al man­date and not re­main “dumb and mum.”

Asked about his wish for the up­com­ing bud­get, George said re­peal­ing one piece of leg­is­la­tion will bring in much-need­ed forex for the coun­try.

“My first and great­est wish is that the Min­is­ter (of Fi­nance Colm Im­bert) cause the im­me­di­ate and un­con­di­tion­al re­peal of the For­eign In­vest­ment Act. That act has crip­pled and sti­fled all di­rect for­eign in­vest­ment in To­ba­go. It is so pal­pa­bly ab­surd and stu­pid,” he said.

George said at a time when the coun­try is starved for for­eign ex­change, the law makes it al­most im­pos­si­ble for To­ba­go to seek for­eign in­vestors on its own.

Im­bert is ex­pect­ed to de­liv­er the bud­get in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives next Mon­day.

Last year’s bud­get was a $59.209 bil­lion pack­age pred­i­cat­ed on an oil price of US$85 per bar­rel and a nat­ur­al gas price of US$5 per MMB­tu.

To­ba­go re­ceived $2.585 bil­lion, of which $2.298 bil­lion was al­lo­cat­ed for re­cur­rent ex­pen­di­ture, $260 mil­lion for de­vel­op­ment, $18 mil­lion for the Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gramme and $9.2 mil­lion for the Com­mu­ni­ty-Based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme (CEPEP).