Kamla: Imbert’s plan doomed to fail – CRIME WILL STUNT GROWTH

Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar says the plans and promises made in the 2024 budget are irrelevant until crime is adequately dealt with, proclaiming: “There can be no prosperity without safety and security.”

Persad-Bissessar gave her budget response in Parliament on Friday afternoon.

On Monday, after Finance Minister Colm Imbert read the 2024 budget, she complained that he only spoke about crime very late and not much.

It was this which led to a major chunk of her response focusing on national security and crime, coming on the heels of the police announcing the murder rate surpassed the figure for the same period last year.

A total of $6.912 billion was allocated to national security. In addition, Imbert said $80 million will be allocated for new police vehicles, and the recruit intake next year will be tripled.

Calling the crime situation a “nightmare,” Persad-Bissessar said, “Even as I speak today, even as we are here, comfortably ensconced in this chamber talking highfalutin talk about the economy, some innocent citizen will be robbed and murdered.

“There is a war on the outside. Criminals are at war with innocent citizens whom the Government have left to fend for themselves.”

On Thursday, the police said it solves 13 out of every 100 murders.

Referencing this, Persad-Bissessar said the Government has ceded control to criminals.

She also spoke of the murders of children – namely Faith Peterkin, ten, Arianna Peterkin, 14, Shane Peterkin, 17, and Tiffany Peterkin, 19, who were shot dead in their Heights of Guanapo home, and 13-year-old Andrea Lallan, who was murdered at her Rio Claro home. Both incidents happened in September.

“When will our dreaming, beautiful children stop ending up in body bags?” she asked.

“How do you all live with yourselves buying more body bags than book bags for our children?”

She said there are more murders per year in TT than good songs, concerts, and gold medals from sportsmen and sportswomen.

“Murder has become more popular than culture.

“Murder and pain, every day, are the new culture of TT.”

In his speech, Imbert said Government sought to “contain and combat serious crime” since 2015.

Persad-Bissessar scoffed at this. But she added that despite crime being a “terrifying monster,” she said, it can be tackled.

She outlined measures she believes Government is well-positioned to act on as well as what the UNC would do if it forms the next government.

She urged Government to rebrand the Highway Patrol Unit, properly staff the E999 call centre, reactivate community comfort patrols, increase the number of CCTV cameras across the country and install electronic billboards.

She also suggested “properly supporting” the Transnational Organised Crime Unit, increasing covert operations at ports, providing electronic data access in all police vehicles, creating a fully computerised crime statistics and reporting system, and having indoor and outdoor shooting ranges for all protective services.

Other suggestions were a training swimming pool facility, a simulation training theatre for the police, health and fitness facilities for police, fit-for-purpose vehicles for the police and customer service and public relations support for the police.

These suggestions, she said, are immediately implementable.

She reiterated her desire to introduce stand-your-ground laws and said the UNC would also have full-time police at schools and increase the municipal police force.

Again, she spoke of restructuring the Ministry of National Security into the Ministry of Home Affairs, Defence and Justice, respectively.

She also wants an increase in the retirement age for the Defence Force, degrees in policing for recruits – and an apprenticeship programme – pre-trial detention and bail reform, fewer security detention centres, ankle bracelets and house arrest.

Returning to addressing children, she called for state support for children of incarcerated people, a fund for children who have lost parents to crime.

She also spoke of enforcing a zero-tolerance approach to physical violence in schools.

“Any student physically attacking another student must be immediately removed from school and only be allowed to return after completing neuro-diagnostic testing and a proper counselling program approved by the state. In the interim, the student can keep up with their lessons via virtual learning.

“What we see in schools is more than bullying, we are seeing violent crimes being committed and the emergence of gang culture.”

She also wants to increase funding to social programmes for youths and tackle marijuana use by teens and young adults.

“So, we on this side can address the monster that is crime. But the monster problem is fed by two sides of the same coin.

“On one side, this government uses all its mental energy to create selfish policies and budgets to focus exclusively on designing themselves and the fake elites into a rich and powerful in-group.

“On the other side of the coin, the real working people are neglected, they feel that life is unfair under this government, they see that everything has fallen apart, and they see no hope.”

She said the UNC held consultations with business chambers, unions, NGOs and the public ahead of the budget to better understand the population.

“We humble ourselves and listen to the people’s dreams, aspirations, and needs to learn what kinds of lives they want. But we do more than listen, we help them formulate the nature of problems and find solutions.”

Even there, she said, crime was a hot topic.

“Every single day, there are home invasions somewhere, there is murder somewhere, there is vandalism somewhere. Every day, there is extortion. Every day! Why is this normal?”

She said the education sector has fallen apart, and public infrastructure is constantly collapsing.

“Healthcare is beyond recovery, essential machines don’t work, essential medication is not available, healthcare staff are targets for criminals...

“Public utilities are hopelessly inefficient. Need I talk about the abject failure that is WASA and T&TEC?”

She said small business owners are suffering to make an honest dollar, and workers and unions are treated like “enemies of the state” for “trying to save themselves from drowning.

“Just because they want to negotiate for fair salaries. Why is that a problem? Why do hard-working people not deserve to be paid well? “Why must they not also want to have a good car and house, to dress nicely, to entertain themselves every so often, and to eat well?

“Why must having these things be for only the fake elites and financiers who have captured this Government? Why?”

Imbert’s speech, she said, included a combination of new and rehashed promises which may never see the light of day.

Click here to read more.