Manning wants more spy cameras

Prime Minister Patrick Manning called for more surveillance cameras to monitor downtown Port-of-Spain. He was addressing the Downtown Owners and Merchants Association (DOMA) annual dinner on Wednesday at the Hilton Trinidad. Saying that the security of citizens against crime was the country’s most critical issue, Manning urged citizens to become less tolerant of crime and more vigilant against its perpetrators. Congratulating DOMA for having introduced surveillance cameras, Manning added: “But I ask you whether that process has been adequately expanded and taken far enough.” He wondered aloud whether DOMA members had also introduced such cameras to their own places of business, noting “crime is not the business of the Government alone.”

Earlier, in an apparent criticism of the Opposition, Manning chided: “While everyone is concerned about the high incidence of crime, not everyone is committed to supporting measures for its reduction or eradication. There are of course as we know those who are unwilling to support much needed legislative changes and other reforms.” But it went much further than that, he added. “There are those who needlessly perceive in every Government initiative an agenda to curtail individual rights and freedoms. As a society, we must come to the point that in order to bell the cat and out-manoeuvre the crime bogey there are times when there is going to be some inconvenience and some things will have to give way.”