Tobago Business Chamber boss wants sober look at TTPS executive’s performance

ELIZ­A­BETH GON­ZA­LES

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

With crime re­main­ing a top con­cern for the peo­ple of To­ba­go, the head of one of the is­land’s busi­ness cham­bers has called for the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC) to break its si­lence on the per­for­mance of the TTPS lead­er­ship.

To­ba­go Busi­ness Cham­ber pres­i­dent Mar­tin George called on cit­i­zens and the au­thor­i­ties to take a “sober, ma­ture re­flec­tion” on what can be done to ad­dress the grow­ing vi­o­lence.

He warned that the time for com­pla­cen­cy had passed. “We have to call a spade a spade. Our na­tion is be­ing de­stroyed, and peo­ple can­not live in peace and safe­ty,”

George said, “I call up­on all of us to make that sober, ma­ture re­flec­tion and con­sid­er what needs to be done. What changes need to be made. And if we as­sess per­for­mances, and find them want­i­ng … then (changes) have to be made.”

Cit­ing his ex­pe­ri­ence as a for­mer Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion mem­bers, he said the PSC has the au­thor­i­ty to take de­ci­sive ac­tion when nec­es­sary. 

He said dur­ing his nine years on the PolSC, he was a part of the de­ci­sion to re­voke the ap­point­ments of two com­mis­sion­ers due to con­cerns over their ef­fec­tive­ness.

For the year so far, To­ba­go has record­ed 25 mur­ders. George lament­ed the alarm­ing lev­els of vi­o­lence plagu­ing the na­tion.

“We are ba­si­cal­ly dig­ging our own graves here in T&T. We are bury­ing bod­ies by the hun­dreds as a re­sult of the wan­ton and reck­less killing of our cit­i­zens.”

How­ev­er, chair­man of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce, To­ba­go Di­vi­sion, Cur­tis Williams said his mem­bers still have faith in the TTPS.

“I know the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty (Fitzger­ald Hinds) and the po­lice are work­ing re­al­ly hard.

“I want to see the po­lice work­ing with the com­mu­ni­ty and the po­lice work­ing with them. They need to give the po­lice the nec­es­sary re­sources they need. They must al­so in­clude their work­ing con­di­tions,” he said.

Calls to Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher for a re­sponse went unan­swered.

Mean­while, peo­ple on the street in To­ba­go had mixed emo­tions about the crime sit­u­a­tion.

Deb­o­rah Bayag said, “Many peo­ple think that Gov­ern­ment could solve our prob­lems. If we look to God, he will solve our prob­lems.”

God­frey Mur­ray said, “When you look at so­ci­ety, it’s very hard be­cause not every­body able to make ends meet. The youths on the streets not get­ting any­thing to do. They want a quick mon­ey.”

Aisha Al­leyne felt young peo­ple are turn­ing to crime be­cause of few op­por­tu­ni­ties.