00:00Former National Security Minister Gary Griffith says the government's decision to enact a
00:05state of emergency is a hypocritical act of desperation.
00:10That a state of emergency is and should not be used as a crime-fighting tool. It is a
00:14stopgap measure. It is put in a plaster or so. It is not going to deal with the situation.
00:19And I mean, all you have to do is look at 2013 to 2015, there was no state of emergency,
00:24but it was the highest reduction in serious crime in 31 years. In 2019 to 2021, there
00:29was no need for a state of emergency because we had the tools, the political will, we put
00:35in the proper policies, units, technology to peg back the criminals.
00:39Griffith, now political leader of the National Transformation Alliance, says the reliance
00:44on a state of emergency is particularly baffling, given that there are other, more effective
00:50methods to address crime without infringing on civil liberties.
00:55What you need is not to put square pegs in wrong holes by having an incompetent security
00:59minister, a clueless commissioner of police. All you're doing is giving them now more powers
01:04to affect the constitutional rights of citizens. And yes, it would peg back criminals to prevent
01:09them from being involved. But for how long? What is required is not the plaster and the
01:14so, but putting the effective tools, people, policies, technology, units, all of these
01:19things that would have been utilized in 2019 to 2021.
01:23Meanwhile, interim political leader of the Congress of the People, Prakash Ramadas, says
01:27the declaration is equivalent to putting a plaster on a gaping soul.
01:32What I find very alarming, however, is there's no reference or mention about the rampant
01:38crimes throughout the length and breadth of this nation in terms of home invasion, executions,
01:43robberies, the sense of total lawlessness throughout the length and breadth of Trinidad
01:47and Tobago, the state of emergency from what they have said is only to deal with crimes
01:53related to gangs and reprisals.
01:55He questions what use has been made of anti-gang legislation and other legislation to stem
02:02violence in TNT.
02:04This may be an attempt to reset the button into the new year. So the count begins, which
02:09I find a bit obscene so that you have a zero count and using a state of emergency to prevent
02:15the numbers, because as we all well know, it's an election year.
02:19Is this an election gimmick to give the impression of work really being done when you have not
02:24indicated at the opportunity to announce it, that you're going to deal with crime throughout
02:28the length and breadth of Trinidad and Tobago?
02:30What efforts have been made?
02:32What protections have been put in place to ensure that the rogue officers who undermine
02:37the work of the majority of well-meaning police officers, what has been done to prevent them
02:44sabotaging that work?
02:45Meanwhile, Philip Alexander of the People's Empowerment Party believes he has the solution
02:51to crime.
02:52The government cannot manage the borders and the ports and the importation of high-powered
02:58weapons and those weapons get into the hands of gangs and those gangs are killing each
03:02other and that is why the entire country now is under the anxiety of a state of emergency
03:08because the government has failed to manage Trinidad and Tobago and the only solution
03:14after you've been in government for 10 years and cannot manage the country is a general
03:19election.
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