KAMLA HIts PNM ON URP/CEPEP CRIME

She was speaking at a UNC meeting at the Community Centre in Plum Mitan on Monday night, one of two that night, the second being held by her opponent, UNC leader Winston Dookeran in Tunapuna.

Persad-Bissessar told the crowd that these gangs had access to untold sums of cash not to clean sidewalks and paint pebbles, but to buy guns and become drug kingpins fighting mercilessly for turf.

“That’s what created the crime wave we see sweeping the country now.”

Persad-Bissessar alleged that the crime wave was being manufactured by the People’s National Movement in its street corner trade of political support for CEPEP and URP.

She said this is why when one of the community leaders with a criminal record “that stands from here to Tobago” who had campaigned for the PNM in the last General Election died in Laventille, Manning declared that the country had lost a national hero. Persad-Bissessar asked, “How can we expect the PNM to fix a problem when they are in fact, the problem itself?”

She said the UNC will begin the task of turning this situation around by putting in place the best resources and strategies since the PNM has neither the political will nor the competence to address crime in a meaningful way.

Persad-Bissessar said it is her intention to form a crime fighting committee within the UNC comprising the finest minds in the world and nothing will be spared in an effort to effectively deal with crime, which she described as a “PNM sponsored scourge.”

Persad-Bissessar said the nation has had enough of million-dollar blimps, gun ships, and other “555” things. She said the UNC initiative is to see local experts working with their internationally renowned counterparts using technology and techniques that are proven widely successful.

Focusing on crime in Tobago, she said crime against tourists is a concern. She said there were a number of serious robberies against tourists in Tobago some of these incidents were accompanied by violence including rape, and the number of these attacks targeted privately rented villas in the south-west of the island. Persad-Bissessar said most occurred in the Mt Irvine area.

The meeting started at 7.30 pm and addressing the hundreds at the community centre were, Wade Mark, Kelvin Ramnath, Harry Partap, Jennifer Jones-Kernahan and others.