The head of at least one business association is giving Commissioner of Police Erla Harewood-Christopher some praise for her efforts in fighting crime. This comes amid a public debate as to whether or not Harewood-Christopher’s contract should be extended when her one-year extension end.
The contract comes to an end this month, as Harewood-Christopher celebrates her 61st birthday. But some members of the business community say they will support a commissioner of police who can address the country’s spiralling crime rate.
Businessmen admitted they were uneasy with the level of crime in T&T.
While giving kudos to Harewood-Christopher’s attempt at crime fighting, Greater San Fernando Area Chamber of Commerce (GSFCC) president Kiran Singh said they were very fearful about the number of home invasions, noting business people have been targeted.
Speaking in a telephone interview yesterday, Singh said,
“As the business community, we in the business—business persons, owners, executives, senior business people—have become soft targets to the criminals. We have listened to the senior police who have told us at various meetings across the length and breadth of the country that we should lock our doors, go home early and we have done that.
“And what the bandits have done is to find us in our homes and break through the burglar-proof, kill the dogs, ignore the security cameras—apparently that is no deterrent to the criminals any more—and invade the homes, commit the various robberies, torture and then murder, in most cases, the innocent business persons,” Singh said.
He said over a year ago, Harewood-Christopher reassured the business community that she had put certain strategies in place to deal with serious crimes but they had not seen the strategies come into effect.
“The murder rate is out of control. It is extremely high. While we have seen a very minimal decrease in the murder rates up to yesterday (Wednesday) it is still too high.
“One murder is one murder too high and we would want to see some measures put in place to address that.
“The numbers that exist within the police force far outnumber the number of persons that commit the crimes and it is unfortunate that a few criminals can hold the entire country ransom and can continue to carry out their various acts of deviance, murders, rapes and robberies,” Singh added.
Chairman of the Confederation of Regional Business Chambers (CRBC), Vivek Charran, said whether or not Harewood-Christopher remained in her position for one year longer, businessmen continued to deal with other issues such as extortion that neither she nor her predecessors have properly addressed.
Charran said, “The rise in criminal extortions is happening because of the fear that people feel.
“If people feel threatened by a criminal group of people and if they feel that there is actually a real sense that these people can come and kill somebody or harm them or come into their homes and they have no way of defending themselves then that is how the extortion actually succeeds.”
Both men said the business community has been lobbying for several years to get their firearm user’s licences to protect themselves by way of legal guns.
They lamented that while criminals had easy access to guns, businessmen could not protect themselves.