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"Taken from our P O L I T I C S section.

Independent Senator Ken Ramchand said yesterday the country’s response to the Soca Warriors was another sign that “we are in desperate need of something to belong to and something to unite us.”

He said what was disheartening was the fact that this “thing” (to belong to and to unite us) was nowhere “in sight or consciousness.”

Ramchand, however, said he was proud of the footballers and was moved by the way the society rallied around them.

Speaking on a private motion on crime in the Senate, Ramchand also warned that if Government did not pursue a balanced curriculum for police trainees, it could be producing criminals and exporting terrorists, instead of training law enforcement officers.

Ramchand said Government had to be careful about focusing exclusively on science and technology since if it did “we would be educating their heads and not their hearts.”

He wanted to know what was the exposure of trainees to the humanities, social sciences, geography history and economy of the country at the police academy.

“In short what degree of cultural literacy are we giving to the people who we are training to be police officers?” he asked.

He said the training of policemen was the most important element in the fight against crime and was the vehicle through which success was most likely.

Ramchand noted that while National Security Minister Martin Joseph said recruits received 792 hours of instruction, he did not say anything about the curriculum, the entry level of the trainees or the period over which the 792 hours were spread.

Ramchand also took issue with Joseph’s statement that Government had to give the UK cops the same compensation, (in the same currency) they received in England.

“Why can’t we compensate them in TT dollars? When they have to buy a Carib, don’t they pay for it in TT dollars?” Ramchand argued.

Stating the standard of living was different in England from what it was in Trinidad and Tobago, Ramchand said Government should have used the take-home pay of the UK cops as the basis for determining the salary given to them in Trinidad and Tobago.

Ramchand also stated while Joseph’s speech was strong in terms of the policy component, it lacked an overall plan to deal with crime. He lamented that the society was becoming more and more inured to brutality, cruelty and sadism, not only in deals and words.

Labour Minister Danny Montano raised the ire of the Opposition when he claimed that figures provided by UNC Senator Tim Gopeesingh showed serious crime increased during the UNC tenure.

Montano, who spoke after Gopeesingh, stated that by Gopeesingh’s own figures, murders went from 107 to 151; rapes from 295 to 545; kidnapping for ransom from 81 to 135 and other crimes from 759 to 894. Montano said the PNM inherited this rate of escalation (in crime) from the UNC.

“Faced with an escalating crime rate, the UNC did nothing and the rate therefore continued to soar,” he said. Montano said despite the findings of the Scotland Yard Report which pointed to all the structural weaknesses and problems, the UNC government did nothing to address them.

Montano expressed confidence in National Security Minister Martin Joseph. He said the UNC would like to be “here” (in government) to enjoy the successes of this regime. This statement provoked laughter from Opposition members.