SHAS­TRI BOODAN

Free­lance Cor­re­spon­dent

Ex­tor­tion was again the main top­ic of dis­cus­sion when the Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce (CCIC) met with Kei­th Scot­land, the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty (Ag), on Mon­day. 

This was the cham­ber’s third meet­ing with Scot­land since he was ap­point­ed. 

CCIC pres­i­dent Bal­dath Ma­haraj said dur­ing the meet­ing, the min­is­ter and As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Richard Smith de­tailed strate­gies aimed at pro­tect­ing busi­ness­es from ex­tor­tion (re­ceiv­ing mon­ey by men­ace). This crime, they said, sig­nif­i­cant­ly im­pacts the fi­nan­cial health of busi­ness­es and the broad­er econ­o­my.

“Em­pha­sis was placed on the fact that ex­tor­tion not on­ly threat­ens prof­its but al­so un­der­mines busi­ness con­fi­dence, de­ter­ring in­vest­ment and sti­fling eco­nom­ic growth. More­over, it im­pos­es a heavy emo­tion­al toll on busi­ness own­ers and their fam­i­lies, who face con­stant fear and un­cer­tain­ty,” he said.

Ma­haraj said Min­is­ter Scot­land in­di­cat­ed that he was in to­tal dis­agree­ment with some­one who threat­ens a busi­ness or an in­di­vid­ual to ben­e­fit from their hard work and as­sured the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty that through ACP Smith, they can feel con­fi­dent to re­port all ex­tor­tion mat­ters to the new An­ti-Ex­tor­tion Unit.

Ma­haraj said mem­bers of the cham­ber al­so got a chance to make sug­ges­tions.

“As the most pop­u­lar shop­ping des­ti­na­tion dur­ing the Christ­mas sea­son, Ch­agua­nas at­tracts count­less vis­i­tors ea­ger to en­joy its vi­brant re­tail of­fer­ings. In light of this, the cham­ber is al­so col­lab­o­rat­ing close­ly with law en­force­ment agen­cies to im­ple­ment ro­bust mea­sures that will lim­it crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties and en­sure a safe and en­joy­able shop­ping ex­pe­ri­ence for all,” he said.