Chambers not supporting ‘shutdown’ calls

The Chambers were however unanimous in their rejection of calls by OWTU president general Ancel Roget for a boycott of those businesses which were owned by the top “one percent” in society. The Chambers also disagree with the August 4 “Labour Day 2” march which is scheduled to take place in Port of Spain saying the unions should have stayed in the tripartite council as this would have enabled them to influence the course of the nation’s future and economy.

In a telephone interview yesterday, Couva/ Point Lisas Chamber of Commerce president, Liaquat Ali, who was a victim of crime recently, (he was stabbed by a man at his business place in Couva in June), said Government should seek foreign assistance as the police service was unable to arrest the crime rate.

“They tried that (a nationwide shutdown) a couple of years ago and it didn’t solve the problem but we need to look at the issue of crime seriously, I don’t think the police service is capable of handling the situation with respect to crime,” Ali said.

“The criminal elements are winning the war on crime, for the past four years or so, there have been over 2,000 murders, how many people were held, how many were brought to justice, the figure is shameful to say how much but we need to explore all the options available and if it means seeking help from outside or looking at something new, they have to be innovative because the police service fighting crime the same way for the past how much years and it not working,” he said.

He said businesspeople had opted not to operate their businesses on more than 12 hour shifts as they were “scared” for the safety of their workers.

“We have to provide transportation for them (employees), so the cost of doing business is getting increasingly high because of the criminal activities that is taking place,” Ali said.

And regarding the stabbing incident, Ali said “police have not communicated with me with respect (to) whether a warrant was issued, whether they apprehended anybody- nothing, I would have called a few times and after that I stopped calling, I leave it up to them.” Meanwhile, incoming Penal/ Debe Chamber of Commerce president Rampersad Sieuraj said crime had to be addressed by all of the protective services including the Judiciary.

“It’s a matter of the implementation of the particular laws that we have, it’s a matter of the judicial system being able to deal with the crime, it’s a matter of the police service to detect and get convictions on an earlier stage so I don’t think that a total shutdown would solve any problem,” Sieuraj said.

“The chamber is of the opinion that white-collar crime need to be addressed because that seems to be the major problem together with the solving of the guns and the drugs coming into the country,” he said.

“There is a total breakdown of all the institutions in the country, presently the Judiciary, even the Army has been embroiled in recent controversies, the police service is in total chaos and those are the issues that need to be addressed,” he said.

Point Fortin South Western Chamber president George Alexis, while he agreed that crime was a national issue said Rambachan seemed to have jumped on the unions “train” of a national shutdown.