Rodney Charles: Govt does not care about crime victims

AS he played an audio recording of an Aranguez woman's frantic plea to the police to save her family from bandits, amid a spate of recent home invasions and murders, Naparima MP Rodney Charles alleged the Government did not care about crime victims, addressing a briefing on Wednesday at the Opposition leader's office in Port of Spain. Complaining of "a pandemic of home invasions," he said the woman reflected the vulnerability of the majority of citizens.

"It's not pleasant," Charles said. "This Government does not care."

He reckoned that soon every person in TT would know someone who has been the victim of a serious crime.

Charles alleged that while Government ministers enjoyed protection by the security services, the public were left to fend for themselves amid a current crime onslaught.

Calculating that TT was on target for 700 murders this year, he alleged that Minister of National Security Fitzgerald Hinds has run out of excuses and should be fired.

Charles reckoned primary school pupils could run that ministry better than Hinds.

He alleged the Prime Minister was bereft of ideas against crime. Charles challenged Dr Rowley to walk down Charlotte Street, Port of Spain at night without his security detail and challenged Hinds to walk in the Beetham Estate unescorted at day or night.

Charles said he had asked questions in Parliament about the state of fire service appliances but Hinds had made him feel his questions were crazy, even as a source within the service had told him half of the country's fire tenders were out of service.

He said unlike the Government, Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar has a comprehensive crime plan.

Charles urged Commissioner of Police Erla Christopher to present her human trafficking report without any fear of the Government not extending her tenure when she reaches the retirement age of 60 in May.

Asked if commissioners should have longer tenures to improve continuity in police leadership, Lee said the Police Service Commission should know Christopher's retirement date.

On her call for divine intervention against crime, Charles quoted the biblical injunction of "faith and works", saying "Ask God to help, but do the work."

Later, Newsday asked if Parliament was proving to be an adequate forum to share ideas to tackle the causes of crime such as family breakdown

Charles alleged the Government viewed Parliament just as "a rubber stamp agency" for the Government. He wondered why Parliament's Joint Select Committee on National Security was chaired by a Government MP who decides the agenda and may ignore/delay certain things.

"That decision by the Rowley Administration tells me that in national security they want maximum control and minimum oversight."

Mulling to Parliament's law-making process, he said, "I've made thousands of what I consider eminently reasonable, not the best, but reasonable suggestions. Not one, not one has been accepted by the Government."

Charles said the Standing Finance Committee of the House of Representatives goes through each line of budget documents with each MP offering ideas.

In seven years, not one Opposition suggestion has been accepted by the Government, he alleged.

"I challenge the chief whip on that side to tell me any idea that was accepted.

"That tells me Parliament they do not see as a serious instrument of oversight and accountability."

Regarding Rowley's conference on Violence as a Public Health Issue next Monday at the Hyatt Regency, Port of Spain, Charles expected just "PR, gallerying, obfuscating, and kicking the (can) down the road."

Charles hit, "Nothing is going to come out of it. He has no answers. He is clueless. He'll give a long-winded speech but what are the deliverables of this speech? How will it reduce home invasions?

"He'll say nothing of substance that will reduce crime."

Pointe-a-Pierre MP David Lee said the former People's Partnership government had offered a raft of tech/voc courses to youngsters but the Government had closed them, although only now trying to offer similar courses under Minister of Youth Development and National Service Foster Cummings. He said under the PP, 4,000 young people graduated annually in programmes like NESC, MIC and Ytepp, until closed.