NGOs should join fight against criminals

This adage may be applicable to Trinidad and Tobago for what does it worth the people of Trinidad and Tobago to gain all the billions of dollars from oil revenue and lose their souls.

However, that is precisely the position in which we find ourselves. After three oil booms the mighty dollar has clearly not contributed to an improved standard of civilisation or to our quality of life.

On the contrary and on the evidence we are indeed more uncivilised today than we were before independence and when we were poor. Moreover, before our independence we were able to live in homes and not buildings converted into jails. We were able to walk the streets without fear of molestation, or of being robbed or murdered. We were able to park our cars anywhere in complete safety and our children attended school free from fear of violence from their fellow students.

What is of urgent consideration is the finding of a solution to our problem and that will clearly not be a press-button one. The solution has to be two-prong.

The first must be to hound down the criminals already on stream and the second to stop the flow of criminals by reconfiguring and restructuring the environment.

Indeed, criminals are now flowing like pitch in the pitch lake and until we are able to stem the flow from the source or the cradle we would be fighting a losing battle. It is clear that Government is unable to do it alone.

In fact that is precisely what the Minister of National Security has said.

What Government or these President should do in these circumstances would be to mobilise the aid of all credible NGOs such as Rotary, Lions, the churches and community organisation and assign them each to a village or district with the object of analysing and assessing the factors contributing to delinquency, truancy and crime and identifying what measures may be adopted or implemented to promote social reform and human development.

Should such a proposition be considered useful then Government should work with such bodies and provide them with a budget to facilitate the operation of such a programme.

R GANACE

California