UNC: Govt Plan B on crime ‘visionless’

OPPOSITION Leader Basdeo Panday said while he remained optimistic that Government’s “Plan B” would succeed in addressing Trinidad and Tobago’s crime situation, he saw nothing in Prime Minister Patrick Manning’s address to the nation on Wednesday which offered much hope that Government knew what it was doing. Panday told Newsday most of Manning’s speech dealt with initiatives which have been previously mentioned, and there did not appear to be any specific objectives outlined in “Plan B” to address crime. He said for the plan to be effective, it must be handled by responsible and accountable people, but he could not say whether Government had such persons on its team. On the Prime Minister’s intention to bring legislation to deny bail to kidnappers, Panday said if that legislation returned to Parliament (in the same format in which it came previously) it would meet the same result as before (when the UNC refused to support it).

On Manning’s statement that Government would focus on white-collar crime, Panday claimed it was possible that Government could use this to camouflage efforts to target UNC members or persons it perceives as being aligned to the Opposition. “That has been their pattern,” Panday stated. Reiterating his view that Government is not serious about crime, the UNC leader said this view was also shared by some members of the business community, who have claimed that Government’s social sector programmes were fuelling crime in TT. Social Development Minister Mustapha Abdul-Hamid dismissed those allegations as “ridiculous.”

Opposition Chief Whip Ganga Singh said he had not heard Manning’s statement and would not comment until he had studied it thoroughly. However Barataria/San Juan MP, Dr Fuad Khan, was more vocal and pessimistic than his political leader on Manning’s speech. He described the Prime Minister’s address as “completely empty, vacuous and ultimately visionless.” Khan claimed no mention was made of a witness protection programme or of increased funding for the Forensic Science Centre in spite of reference to legislation to upgrade the centre. On the subject of white-collar crime and the drug trade, Khan called on Manning to do an assessment “of all financial houses and brokers, who it seems, are assisting the drug trade by laundering monies through purchasing real estate in the capital city.”