TANCOO: STOP PROTECTING INCOMPETENCE-FIRE HINDS NOW
The Constituency of Oropouche West have been hit with a slew of criminal activities, in particular invasion of homes and businesses. Once more residents were left terrified on the 24th of August as in broad daylight, gun toting criminals roamed the streets robbing and abusing residents of San Francique. Two business places were robbed and there was an attempt to rob another which thankfully failed. Residents cowered in their homes as these men ran with guns in hand down the street. While Prime Minister Rowley downplays our crime situation stating that it’s not unique to Trinidad and Tobago, citizens and their families are being relentlessly attacked without any hope that the PNM government cares about their plight or will do anything about it.
The skyrocketing crime has been plaguing our citizens, with their families being brutally attacked and the best that the Acting Commissioner of Police can do is to tell victims to be patient despite the fact that nothing it seems, is being done to deal with this crime tidal wave. The Minister of National Security’s open declaration that stopping crime is not his responsibility explains his incompetence and impotence in addressing crime. Yet this incompetence is being proudly supported by the Prime Minister, who is also the Head of the National Security Council, that liaises with and coordinates the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service, the Fire Service, the Prison Service, the Coast Guard and the Ministry of National Security.
Why does Prime Minister Rowley condone this comprehensive failure at the cost of the lives of citizens? Instead, the Prime Minister, Minister of National Security and Acting CoP seem obsessively focused on an investigation of legal firearms while citizens are threatened by illegal firearms and criminals.
Why is the Government facilitating crime? Our citizens are being brutalized and slaughtered while those with 24 hour heavily armed police guards like the PM and his Ministers, paid for by taxpayers, ignore the crime wave and the assault on our people. It seems as though this government is unwilling to empathize with the issues faced by the citizens of Trinidad and Tobago. Under this PNM government the borders have been deliberately left open to facilitate human trafficking and the free importation of drugs and guns. Why the absolute laziness to protect citizens? Where is the pepper spray as promised that will give our women some level of protection? Where are the increased resources to the police service?
Citizens now have to take drastic measures to protect themselves because the government has chosen to close its eyes to the crisis. The only business that is thriving is crime and that is openly facilitated by government’s impotence and/or deliberate negligence. I ask openly whether this PNM administration is in bed with criminals. Why is it every aspect of the judicial system and the rule of law is being undermined? From the appointment of a Commissioner, to provision of resources to the police service, to pepper spray, to the collapse of the DNA lab and investigative capability, sabotage of the Judiciary by under-resourcing, and including the prison system being underfunded and underequipped. Citizens are being made into sitting ducks for the abuse by the criminal elements and this is facilitated by the government turning a blind eye.
Every PNM administration boasts of knowing who the gang leaders and criminals are. If they know the criminals well enough to identify them as criminals and choose to do nothing, citizens must ask themselves why. This government is encouraging the creation of a wild wild west except that the target of both the criminal elements and the government is the citizens.
Crime may not be unique to Trinidad and Tobago. What is unique however is a government that facilitates it by undermining the rule of law and administration of justice. I call on Prime Minister, Hinds and Jacobs to stop playing games with the lives of our citizens. For the sake of our citizens FIRE HINDS NOW.