Duke tells Tobago: Murder should never be accepted as norm

PROGRESSIVE Democratic Patriots (PDP) political leader Watson Duke has condemned the ten murders in Tobago for the year so far.

Speaking at a news conference on Wednesday at the party’s headquarters, Port Mall, Scarborough, Duke told Tobagonians that murders should never be accepted as the norm in society.

“No murder is acceptable. Not one,” he said.

Last Saturday, Rae-Ann Henry, of Canaan Feeder Road, became the island’s tenth murder victim for 2023. Reports said Henry got into a fight with another woman around 9pm and was stabbed several times. Henry was taken to the Scarborough General Hospital, where she died of her injuries.

Duke said while human beings will get angry from time to time, committing murder was not the answer.

“Cool yourself. Read a Bible. Take a sea bath. Do not think that a gun or a knife or some type of a weapon that can be used to take a life is the cure.

"Regardless of what, you can never kill your problems. You may kill a man. But your problems will continue.”

He said many people who are in prison have “real problems” and want to come out.

“But funny enough, those outside want to go in. They eh fraid jail.”

Duke urged both men and women to “cool it.

“In Tobago, all ah we ah one family. Let’s go back to the place where arguments could be settled by a peaceful conversation.”

He urged stakeholders to unite in the fight against crime.

“Sixty thousand people on the island. Where is the church? Where are the elders in the community? Where are the bigshots in the community? Where are the area representatives?

" Let’s make Tobago a better place. This is the passionate plea.”

In the 2024 budget on Monday, Finance Minister Colm Imbert announced that the government has instructed the Commissioner of Police to treble the intake of police recruits from 300 to 1,000, in 2024, as one of the measures to reduce crime.

He said the police will also be given $80 million for new vehicles and equipment to increase their presence in communities.

According to the figures in the Estimates of Expenditure, arising out of the budget, crime-fighting has received over $6 billion.