THE US ISSUES A LEVEL 3 TRAVEL ADVISORY FOR TT (“RECONSIDER TRAVEL”): THIS IS A COMPLETE FAILURE OF THE PNM
The United States has just significantly increased its Travel Advisory to Level 3 for Trinidad and Tobago, telling US citizens around the world to “reconsider travel” to the entire country. The announcement was made on its website on 8 November 2022.
https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/international-travel/International-Travel-Country-Information-Pages/TrinidadandTobago.html
Meanwhile, Port of Spain, held by the PNM for over 6 decades, sadly remains steady at the worst possible level of alert for US citizens: Level 4, “Do Not Travel”. The rest of the country is now only one level below Port of Spain.
What a complete failure of the PNM this represents.
This latest downgrading of our country by the US has been due to “updated crime and security information”. Ironically, it was issued on the very day that Fitzgerald Hinds expressed in Parliament that he was satisfied that the PNM Government has done everything it can to help the police fight crime.
Last week, too, Keith Rowley also told supporters that he was satisfied that the PNM has done everything it can to fight crime, and that Fitzgerald Hinds has been doing a good job, even as we reach the highest number of murders in our history!
Rowley told citizens not to expect any better. Impotently, he argued that no one could predict when or where the next criminal act would happen, so there was nothing more his Government could do.
It is as though Rowley has sunk us to the bottom.
Trinidad and Tobago is in this downward spiral clearly as a result of the failed policies and governance of the PNM. It is instructive that crime and murder is the worst in PNM strongholds.
Their failed governance has now put the whole country under increased threat.
While there can be no debate that Fitzgerald Hinds is the worst minister of National Security we have ever had in the history of Trinidad and Tobago, his predecessors — Stuart Young and Edmund Dillon — were also complete disasters.
Stuart Young’s stepdaughter was charged for possession of marijuana for the purpose of trafficking, possession of cocaine for the purpose of trafficking and possession of a firearm and ammunition, in the largest drug bust in Trinidad and Tobago in recent times.
While holding the post of National Security Minister, Edmund Dillon visited the United States regularly to attend a US Supreme Court civil matter in which allegations of “elder financial abuse, exploitation and fraud” had been levelled against him.
If this is – by Rowley’s own admission – the best that they can possibly do, then, for the sake of Trinidad and Tobago, Rowley and Hinds must resign now.
Let the country vote in the UNC, which has been the only party able to reduce the number of murders over its term of government.
Over and over again, murder has always increased over the PNM’s terms of government, every single time they have been in office.
Trinidad and Tobago cannot afford to wait any longer. PNM must go now.
— END —
Dr. Kirk Meighoo
Public Relations Officer
United National Congress