Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: You're tuned into the all new Freedom 106.5 106.5.
[00:00:06] Speaker B: Mr. Lalo, good morning to you and welcome to Freedom 106.5 FM yet again. Welcome to the Rumble.
[00:00:13] Speaker A: Good morning to you and all your listeners this morning.
Hope all is well.
[00:00:17] Speaker B: Well, as best as it can. It's always a pleasure to chat with your learned self and get your legal perspective on a lot of things that is happening this morning. We will be touching on some of these stakeholders as they eye Minister of Finance Devindranath Tanku as he delivers the mid year budget review. Now when we look at the overall budget which saw some 50 something billion dollars, you know, allocated or supposedly for this year, we understand that we operate in a deficit. We have been operating in that space since 2009, I think 2008 thereabouts under the then PNM led administration by Patrick Manning. Coming through the years, we continue to operate in our deficit, we continue to borrow, we continue to spend our earning capacity. For some reason we can't seem to get it on par with our spending.
Let's take a look through your lens as we deal with issues of national security and crime as it relates to the budget thus far, this government would have ushered in their first budget.
What do you think we need to pay attention to as it relates to the first six months and the incoming six months ahead?
[00:01:30] Speaker A: Well, crime remains one of our biggest issues in the country. We see a state of emergency continuing causing quite a lot of disquiet among the population at a state of emergencies running for so long. The government has in the first year tried to put in measures which they have outlined as measures to deal with try to combat crime, including legislation such as stand your ground.
You see new police vehicles, you see the whole debate of body cameras being dealt with. But the issue remains, you know, regardless of the number of amount of money being put into crime fighting measures and national security, is it addressing the issue in a meaningful way that gives the population that sense of confidence? When we look at the budget allocations every year for crime, it's in the billions of dollars. Yet we're not seeing any meaning change.
The numbers that we see in the last year, I think there's been a drop somewhat in the number of murders, albeit not significantly.
The country remains concerned about the biggest issue being crime.
I've seen some of the utterances in terms of what the budget or the budget review is going to address, which is more money towards policing, training, body cameras, infrastructure, but again a lot of it is going to depend on what impact it has. So that while the government is given a year's grace going into a second year, it becomes even more challenging for them. I think people are forgiving generally of a government within their first year trying to find their footing. The PNM having been in power for the last 10 years, the government coming in fresh off the the batting now has that difficulty of trying to maneuver, understand its budget, understand how it's going to create allocations and most importantly, as you rightly said, how do you balance this budget so you're not in a deficit? As we've continued to see for so many years now, One of the biggest problems is our diversification. We fail to diversify properly as an economy and our reliance on oil and gas has been something that has really put us in a negative position.
You know, since the 1970s, we've relied 100% on, on our energy sector to fuel us. We still rely heavily on that. And because of the global changing environment in terms of energy, we've had, you know, a lot of difficult times in our past years. Now the geopolitics is going to play a little bit, hopefully to our favor. We saw what happened in Venezuela. We seeing some of the energy giants now knocking on the doors in Trinidad. We're seeing the possible revitalization of the old petro train, which is heritage and barrier now.
And it is hoped that these would bring international investment, would bring a renewed sense of revenue into the country.
It still is a very tight budget. It's still there are a lot of stakeholders who are still very unhappy. The public service, the unions are quite unhappy still. The chambers of commerce are very somewhat optimistic, but still very concerned whether or not these measures are going to drive the economy. Employment still remains very high. The issue of the CPAP workers who lost their job remains a very troubling issue. So we're going into another year of a budget review where there are serious concerns affecting the country. National security is one of many, many concerns. And I think one of the issues that the population has is that while aggressive measures are being put in place, we're seeing so many elements of violent crime. Where recently we see children being attacked and murdered, we see the incident with the ride share driver, we're seeing the ordinary citizen being affected in a serious way. We're seeing home invasions very seriously affecting people's lives. So while on one hand you have the big crimes, the big drug holes and the money laundering and the other issues, the population is looking towards a budget and allocations and the police and homeland security to do something that is going to have an immediate effect on their lives and that is what while the allocations are going to be put towards various aspects of the national security, operator operators, I think they have to convince the population and the security agencies that this is going to have a meaningful impact on what they have seen in the last few years. Not only within the last year, but the crime has been a plague that we've suffered for quite some time.
[00:06:19] Speaker B: You know, when we look at the situation, as you mentioned, with the crime and you talk about international investors possibly restarting of the the old Petrotrain refinery, now Heritage in Paria, how practical and prudent is that for investors looking in, especially checking our budget reviews, understanding we have been in a deficit for quite some time. But not only that, we seem to have now embedded into the fabric of our crime fighting strategies a continuous state of emergency. How is that affecting it, our international scope of things? How are the lens, the investors to the lens of those investors looking in at our economy while wanting to make a meaningful contribution? As you mentioned, they're knocking on the door given the geopolitical shift in Venezuela. They're knocking on the door now because they see the potential for us to move back into an energy sector.
However, we still operate in a realm of a state of emergency that seems to be embedded, as I mentioned, into the fabric of our crime fighting. How are we to look at that while focused on the media budget review that will see us hopefully getting some kind of relief or something that's hitting a trajectory to the future? How are we to fear as it relates to this budget review and the current state of emergency that we currently exist in?
[00:07:42] Speaker A: Well, there are going to be different levels of, of investors who are looking into the country. The giants obviously are going to be looking with a broad lens. Obviously a stable country, stable judicial system, stable economy largely are factors that are looked at. Yes, state of emergency, something that will seriously be looked at. Because remember, state of emergency and crime ties into your stability.
Whether the analysis reveals that the state of emergency is seen as a meaningful measure to create stability is something that their analysis will either work positively for us or negatively against us. In other words, are you doing all that is possible to ensure that you're dealing with crime in a meaningful way to make the country safer and address issues that are national security issues so that your potential investors would have a safe environment to operate in? So a lot of the giants, for example the Exxon and others are not going to be interested that much with the home invasion or the petty crimes, then their concern is the general stability of the country, whether there's likely to be disruptions, whether there are riots, whether the country can operate properly or not. The smaller investors now people who may be involved in manufacturing, small business are going to look at the global impact.
How is this impacting on people's day to day operation, their ability to work, the employment levels, the meaningful contribution people want to make, people spending power, they're fair to get involved in business or to participate. Forex remains a big issue. For example, I mean that has been an issue for years and we've seen that debated so much where the average citizen, if he's even traveling, he struggles with the bank to even get $100 when he goes to the bank.
That is not a direction that creates comfort in people's minds. You also have to have a trickle down effect that the average citizen feels the impact that there's going to be some kind of meaningful change. Now there's a lot of dialogue with certain businesses or big businesses being the benefit of large sums of foreign exchange and the small businesses who may be involved in day to day trading or manufacturing not being able to to access foreign currency. These are issues that also have to be addressed. So anytime foreign investors look in Trinidad, they look at it holistically. Is this a place I want to do business or not? Now what works very much in our favor right now is our location. Geopolitically. We're seeing what Guyana, Suriname, Venezuela have become the energy giants of the region.
We fortunately have over 100 year history of being probably a leader in the energy sector. Albeit we're having our problems now, how do we capitalize on that? How do we ensure that we can take advantage of the changing move? So again, the politics becomes difficult because you're dealing with a country that has been on a downward slope for quite some time. This didn't happen a year ago, this happened for quite some time. And now to rebalance it, it's tough decisions. It's a hard challenge to try to see how you get your footing back on, but what our government has to do is communicate properly to its people to say, listen, this is where my direction is. This is what I plan to do. Not only to talk about it in fanciful language in parliament, but it must translate to people that the average citizen understands. Look, if I ban in my belly, I understand why I'm banning my belly. There's light ahead. If I am, I can't understand why there's a state of emergency because that is an encroachment on my civil rights.
I must be able to see that not only there's a statistical change, but I must be able to see that you're communicating with me that there's going to be light at the end of the tunnel, that this is not only a crime fighting tool, because states of emergency are not meant to be a crime fighting tool. It's meant to be a mechanism used where there's serious threats or information that come to our government or state agency that they, they invoke this measure.
Bearing in mind state of emergency suspends all your constitutional rights, the right to be arrested, detained for them to enter your home without warrant. So it's a very, very serious mechanism that's used. It is the most serious mechanism a government could use. I mean, fortunately we're not seeing major encroachments into the daily lifestyle that people face. People are still liming they're going out, there are not many roadblocks, there's not a major disruption. But the veil of a state of emergency can only be treated very seriously. And I think that level of communication, even from an economy with a lot of people who are looking for jobs, a lot of people who feel that they're not in a comfortable position, that dialogue needs to be had in a way that it trickles down in terms of communication and I feel sometimes the communication is not effective enough. There's so much noise taking place in parliament that the citizen is not getting the benefit of understanding whether the government is going to have good place or a bad place and how does it affect their bottom line there, their freedom of movement, their ability to go about their lives, their children future, their pocket, their future. That is what the average citizen, the majority of Trinidad, wants to be, to understand and wants communication to be had in such a way that they could follow. Look, this is your budget, this is why you're doing it. They don't want the noise carries you so far, no further. Doesn't help any grocery, doesn't help you when something happens to your child, it doesn't help in bullying, it doesn't help you with a job. You know, and I, I think sometimes the, the conversation takes place at a level that it's only certain people understand the level and it's not, not trickling down any meaningful way.
[00:13:40] Speaker B: It should, as you mentioned, that it would be remiss of me if I didn't ask you this question. We talk about suspensions of persons rights. You also alluded to the reason why an SOE would Be invoked, we seem to think from well with present administration, the present and past ones where if our weekend we had some nine persons died in 48 hours. We had some mass shootings at har place. We have other shootings taking place in Powder Magazine other areas A child dies in a quadruple shooting up in Laventille. We seem to think that these little infra, but I don't want to say little, but these internal infractions in our country, not threatening the stability of the government over any governmental authority, but these, you know, on the ground squabbles, some, some of them domestic, have been reasons while previous, while current and previous administrations have invoked an SOE.
In 2011, I think under the people's Partnership there was a shooting, a series of murders that went over a weekend and that sparked a state of emergency. The last recent state of emergency where the Commissioner of Police Alistair Guevara gave information that they from intelligence they gathered that governmental officials were targeted, et cetera, et cetera, from behind the prison walls, which led to another state of emergency. Have we lost our way that normal civil crime in a country outside of a governmental threat or an authoritative threat against any member of parliament or government where we can invoke SOEs because we seem to be invoking it haphazardly and willy nilly it just seems to be happening.
[00:15:33] Speaker A: Well, you're right in the that incidents, as terrible as they may be, but as limited to location or individuals ought not to be the reason for a state of emergency. Again, a state of emergency.
One thing they can't take away from us or the mental that never take away or interfere when I say anybody is our constitutional rights because that is like the supreme law that trumps everything.
So only in very, very exceptional circumstances does the law even permit and that's the only area that it's allowed to change or interfere with your constitutional rights in a state of emergency. Now again, the dialogue and the communication I think is lacking because we hear different choruses giving the message to the population. It may be a crime fighting tool, it may be an incident taking place that cannot be right. It can only be incidents that actually affect national security as a whole. Now the problem that takes place is that a lot of the incidents, so let's say when you hear the commissioner of police talking about threats to government individuals, that information ordinarily cannot be shared because obviously of a security nature that it's not meant to be discussed. But again, one of the things, the communication in terms of assuring the population that this is not A crime fighting tool. But this is a mechanism because of threats that are being addressed and demonstrating some kind of meaningful impact, not just statistics is what is required. Because if you don't have that meaningful communication and the population thinks, well, state of emergency is a joke, you're just having this. My life goes. And normally nothing is happening. The crime is not changing and it's not something you want to treat with lightly. The minute you start treating state of emergency as something that is a norm and not an exception, you have a problem. And we might be getting into that state where we state of emergency is just a normal part of life and that is not a good place to be.
We need that dialogue, we need the communication to assure the population that look, these are drastic measures for a drastic reason that is being addressed. We may not be able to know all the facts, but I think that dialogue has to happen because you don't ever want to enter people's minds that you could be entering in a police type state where the police have untold power and there's not complete justification to it. I mean, the only mechanism we have of protection as the courts remain the guardians. But then again, not everybody could afford to go to court. Not everybody knows what their rights are, not everybody knows that they can challenge it. And again, the lack of communication with people knowing what their rights are even under, say the emergency, are serious matters to address. So that coming back even to the general budget, if you're not communicating properly, you're going to have this disconnect. And disconnect becomes a dangerous thing where a population is not sure and then politicians banter in a way that could rile people up and it may be riled up for the wrong reason. And nobody is being told how, why, what, when, where, and that is something I think the government needs to address more seriously in terms of that level of meaningful communication with the population.
[00:19:02] Speaker B: I thank you for that. Let's take a call. Respectfully and quickly, please. Good morning.
[00:19:06] Speaker C: Good morning. I was listening to council a while ago and I wanted to ask this.
How do you feel as an attorney at law when you see the titular head of the bar on his legs in the parliament of all places, virtually threatening people to have them incarcerated without due process?
And secondly, I would ask you this question.
Is there a law association in Trinidad and Tobago who is making people aware that this state of emergency, what it is about and how, even though the state has that right, it is not a right that you just use capriciously. I listen to your comments.
[00:19:51] Speaker A: Well, first of all we have seen Parliament become a forum where anything goes.
And you know, at the end of the day, I still believe that due process must take place and will take place. The rule of law remains very important to our democracy. If you're going to have people believing that any politician can invoke law without due process, then we're in real trouble. So I think people, politicians get carried away at times. They're very liberal in their language, even on both sides. I mean, we're seeing a lot of inflammatory language that you could debate about. But you know, at the end of the day, you need to fall back in terms of reassuring the population that you have a stable police service, a stable dpp, stable court system to give that sense of comfort. Without that, then you really have a problem. The Law association. I agree, Nicola, you have a law association who should be more vocal. But a law association really depends on the executive that run it. And I don't think they have been very vocal. And a lot of issues are not from today for quite some time. And you know, it's a shame because people look towards the law association to make comments and then it really ends up to individual lawyers making comments, trying to at least give the population some sort of perspective. But it becomes an individual perspective as mine, and not a collective perspective. But again, the Law association is an elected body that they have their mandate and only they could decide whether they want to make statements or not.
But again, Nicola is right. If you're not having that level of communication, and again, there's a misinterpretation of the liberal use of language in Parliament, it could be a dangerous thing to the population.
[00:21:42] Speaker B: I agree. Good morning.
Hello. Good morning.
All right. 625. A Saudi call coming through.
[00:21:48] Speaker C: 625.
[00:21:48] Speaker B: 2,257 and 6273223. Yes. Good morning.
[00:21:54] Speaker C: Morning, Devi.
[00:21:55] Speaker B: Good morning.
[00:21:55] Speaker C: Thank you. Honorable Councillor, could you please tell me if juvenile state of UNC in the Habeas Corpus act is also suspended? Thank you.
[00:22:07] Speaker B: During a state of emergency, is the Habeas Corpus act suspended?
[00:22:12] Speaker A: No, Hebescoba still runs, but when there's special provisions, if you're detained under a state of emergency regulations, so remember, you could be still arrested for a number of offences that do not fall within the realm of state of emergency. But there are measures that the police could use under the state of emergency that could cause your detention. And those measures, there's special provisions how you can address going to court for those purposes. And habeas corpus just really means Bring the body before the court. So the police arrest you in the normal scheme of things and they're not charging you, they're detaining you, they're not explaining to you why they're holding you and it goes beyond that 48 hour period of time you could apply to the court to say under habeas corpus application to say, listen, the police are not charging. I want this person brought before the court and I want an explanation from the police as to why they're not charging if they intend to charge and if not, get an order of the court to release the person. So that just puts it into perspective, right?
[00:23:18] Speaker B: Respectfully and quickly. Good morning.
[00:23:21] Speaker C: Of course, Good morning, attorney.
Good morning, Mr. Murray and the people. Good morning.
[00:23:26] Speaker B: Good morning.
[00:23:27] Speaker C: I'm on Friday, how you put it, the budget, you know what I mean? The allocation of the budget that they had on Friday, if you look at the police service over time, bill, sometime ago it was about 12 million. How much?
And they come and they ask for another eight. How much? Million. And we are asking for the increase because they had increased the police service from 6,000. How much? Those. If you increase the demand, the amount of officers, how does the overtime still escalate? And this overtime has nothing to do with the SOE yet this has to do with just normal overtime. So if you had six workers, Davy, and you had a problem with shuffling your six workers over a period of time and you move your six workers from six people, nine, shouldn't your overtime now go down instead of go up? And if your overtime goes up, that means the police service performance should increase. That means I should have more matters going to court, more victories in the court, more arrests in the court. So therefore I will not have this cause for the state of emergency. So therefore from my perspective, Davy, the policeman, the police service now, compared to how it was being managed under Mr. Griffith, it's totally off, baby. Heinz had made an argument when they moved Griffith, when they put in the next commissioner, about the same overtime bill. Just.
[00:25:04] Speaker B: I think that, not that what you're bringing up there is a bit outside of the scope in which Mr. Senior Council and myself.
[00:25:11] Speaker C: No, but we are talking about the budget, so we are, we are joined. I don't think it's out of the scope of Mr. Lala's, we're just asking if it's, if it's logical to increase your staff but over time instead it goes down, it goes up. Just simple management, daily financial, common sense. Enjoy your morning, gentlemen.
[00:25:33] Speaker B: Do you.
[00:25:34] Speaker A: Well, I, I think the caller actually is expressing our concern that a lot of people have. I mean, you're increasing the budgets, demand power. We see the issue of, of over time being an issue that has been debated for quite some time. Is the measurement of police success at such a level that people feel that level of confidence. In other words, the commissioner police as CEO of his organization, is he reporting back to the population that all these allocations that are being given, you're seeing meaningful change as a population or how do you benchmark the success if you're going to be more overtime? As the caller says, are you seeing it translating in crime fighting measures that are really having an impact? So again, it comes back. I keep saying the point is it's communication because the commissioner of police is not communicating to the population properly. The caller is right. People will have these concerns that you're getting more money, you're spending more time. What are you doing with your time? Okay, it's very basic, real questions and
[00:26:36] Speaker B: I mean I thank you very much for your response on that. I really appreciate that. Now, it will be remiss of me if I don't get at this point with you as it relates to the
[00:26:47] Speaker C: 15
[00:26:50] Speaker B: no protest zones.
We have never. I'm not sure if in our history persons were denied the opportunity to protest in front of Parliament, we'd have seen it happen in the past. Now it's declared a no protest zone.
It is being seen by many of the watchful eyes on those, as we just say, have sense that yet attempting to stop us. The reason behind it is because of the security risk it poses. If you go in front of the DPP office or in front of Parliament in front of any of these zones, ministry and all these places. But in the past we was allowed. How can one perceive what is happening now? Can we now say that these no protest zone is as a result of a state of emergency and once it's ended, we can revert to the constitutional way of things where you're free to protest. The Prime Minister stood on her feet recently and talk about the square footage of the land and the small percent of land mass that you're not allowed to protest, but you had the balance of Trinidad and Tobago to protest. You know, I'm very curious in the final moments of this interview to find out from a legal luminary such as yourself, a legal mind, how we as regular citizens should look at this.
Is this something that they can do? Is this something because of the SOE and once it ends we revert or is this it going forward in Our lives in Trinidad and Tobago.
[00:28:15] Speaker A: Well, from what has been communicated by the government is it would be, it appears to be only in tandem with the state of emergency. Now, the right to protest has not been removed, and I don't think we should ever remove the right to protest because that's an important part of our history, internationally and otherwise. And again, we've always seen protests in this country taking place largely peacefully. And people need that opportunity to voice their concerns because they're voicing the concerns in forms of protest sometimes are the only ways that people understand what the plight is. You know, if you don't make noise sometimes nobody listens to you. Now, what they have said, again, I don't have the inside information, but what they have used as a mechanism is that, look, based on the state of emergency, the information they have whether or not a protest could be used in such a way to create disruption now, not casting blame on any individual or person or organization, they have used it as a broad base to maintain the order they believe is necessary based on information they have coming. So again, if they're not able to communicate at some point in time that, look, you've had six months of state of emergency or a year of state of emergency, what have you really achieved? Have you been able to deal with the problems that you had the state of emergency for? If you're not able to address those at that point in time, you're going to lose a lot of points because the population is holding its breath with a state of emergency, being tolerant, saying that, listen, you are putting all these very drastic measures in place because you have told the population that there are certain measures that have to take place in the interests of the country as a whole. Now the country waits with bated breath to see what these, what are the results? Not only a statistical drop. And again, the government has that responsibility to communicate to the population. And I say that even this government, as previous governments, must engage the population in a way that they understand fully what is going on and fully meaning, not necessarily revealing all the internal facts, but kept abreast that there's not the suspicion of things going on in a way that is encroaching in their daily lives or their rights and freedoms that they enjoy.
[00:30:38] Speaker B: I thank you for that. And I have time for one more phone call. I will take one call and quickly comfort.
[00:30:46] Speaker C: Tell me something.
Isn't it the responsibility of the legislators to pass laws for the good governance of the country?
And we are in this place. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to understand it because all of our institutions of state, the security institutions, have been found wanting, corrupt everything else. Where are the legislators going to pass laws for the good governance of the country? And what is the responsibility of the present political directorate in ensuring that it's done? Alison, you go best.
[00:31:17] Speaker A: Well, I say, I mean, good point, but laws don't really solve all the issues. I mean, we have an integrity act, but you can't legislate. Integrity is either somebody inherently has integrity or not. So even if you pass all the laws, you have major problems in the police service. With all that is said and done, the perception of the public is people don't largely trust the police service.
Now how much do you legislate? It comes to leadership, it comes to mechanisms in place that people can earn the trust of the individuals who hold office. You could pass more laws in Trinidad, even with crime, it's not going to mean that crime is going to stop. People try to avoid all these measures. We have to work on our leaders taking the bull by the horns and taking control to build confidence back in the people. I don't feel only passing laws is the solution. Laws become burdensome over a point in time and then the average law abiding citizen is the one who suffers. And those who decide to break the law will continue to break the law. So it comes to whether it's police, national security, whatever agency, the leaders have to demonstrate that they are able to address these concerns that the population has faced for 20 years.
[00:32:32] Speaker B: Exactly. So last question. This is yes or no. Should we take a El Salvadorian approach to how we handle gang violence in Trinidad and Tobago? Would that be no? All right, I will probably talk to you off air, maybe next later on because I'm curious to know why you say no. But thank you very much, Mr. Umlala, senior counsel, for chatting with us this morning as we took a look at the media budget review, national security and crime as it relates to us going forward as a country and as a nation. I thank you very much and do have a very safe and wonderful week ahead.
[00:33:06] Speaker A: Thank you and all the best to your callers and listeners this morning. Have a good one.
[00:33:10] Speaker B: Same to you, buddy.
[00:33:11] Speaker A: You're tuned into the all new freedom 106.5, 106.5.
