SOE&CRIME

[00:00:01] Speaker A: The best insight, instant feedback, accountability. The all new Talk Radio Freedom 106.5. [00:00:08] Speaker B: Let's welcome to our show President of the Greater San Fernando Chamber, that is Sakiran Singh. Good morning to you and welcome to our program. [00:00:21] Speaker A: Good morning, Satish. And good morning to Trinidad and Tobago. [00:00:24] Speaker B: Nice to have you with us. Happy New Year to you and to your membership and to everybody else. [00:00:29] Speaker A: Happy New Year to you and your listeners across the greater nation of Trinidad and Tobago. [00:00:34] Speaker B: Normally, when we have discussions on the the first working day of the new year, they're very optimistic. And those discussions usually speak about people's hopes and dreams and some of their aspirations for the year to come. And we review some of what took place in the year gone by. But our discussions today have a very, very somber note to them for. For many reasons. The murder, the assassination of a state prosecutor. The final day of the year. Two murders already in the first day of the year. A state of emergency in effect has not necessarily engendered the usual atmosphere that we have on the first working day of the year. Let me begin by getting your opinion, your association's opinion, their point of view on the state of emergency in its present incarnation. And what are some of the expectations that the San Fernando Greater Chamber has? [00:01:37] Speaker A: When the government and the president announced a state of emergency, we thought that that is a step in the right direction. We support the state of emergency given the high record number of murders and serious crime that is occurring in the country. Unfortunately, we have already had two murders before the start. The murder of a state prosecutor assigned to special case responsibilities was brutally murdered. I understand his family members were present. This is a crime of heinous proportions that continues. It becomes such a normal thing now that we read about it and we turn the page or we continue listening to other news when it should send. Shock waves of such proportion just causes the society to pause and ponder up on what is going on in this country. We have a state of emergency and these guys still running around killing people. This is, this, this can't be right. Whether the persons being killed are gangster members or innocent citizens or victims of domestic violence or road rage, whatever the reason, these criminals have no respect for law, order, the police, the army, nobody. Because when the state of emergency is in effect, the army has full force and full power to go out there and do what they have to do. Now, we did see some increasing numbers in police and army presence, but I saw a recent news report that they did seize some, I think arms and ammunition from somebody's house recently. But that says a lot. But are they doing enough? We expected them to come out with a ban, come out in full force and demonstrate to the public that, listen, we're serious about the state of emergency. We're very present. We're still not seeing that inspire the confidence that we once had. Any police in the army? They are there for our purpose. Their job is to protect and serve. They are there to perform a duty to the citizens of this country and if they can't do it, give somebody else the job. The citizens are entirely frustrated with the crime rate in this country. That's extremely frustrating. I don't think anybody has a positive word to say. Unfortunately, it has infiltrated every asset and facet of this society to such an extent that how are we supposed to live a comfortable life? We all thought that 2025 will start off with a brighter hope, a new vision, new experiences. But it seems to be the same old thing. Barely two hours into the new year and we had a murder. What is going on? Where is the army and the police? Where are they? [00:04:21] Speaker B: It suggests that the criminal element to use a local power, they can give two hoots about the state of emergency. And it has not had an impact on their criminal activities simply because they just don't seem to take it seriously. They don't see it as an inconvenience. The Prime Minister said that the police need to inconvenience the criminal elements. The two murders that we've seen and the final one to wrap up 2024 don't suggest that they care. Now the discussion is all over the place. There are some people who support the state of emergency, some people who think it's a waste of time, some people who are hopeful that it's going to bring about some sort of positive development. But the absence of a curfew is an interesting discussion because as we spoke to Pastor Dalton this morning, he thought, and many people thought, that it was automatic that once there's a state of emergency, there's a curfew. And while we know that having a curfew brings with it a number of challenges, the absence of one also brings with it a number of challenges. Success wise. What's the view of the San Fernando Chamber? Because we are told that, or we were told at the press conference with the acting Attorney General and Minister of National Security that this state of emergency wasn't about law abiding citizens, wasn't about business, it wasn't about any of those things. It was about the gangs going after the gangs. Now, three days into the state of emergency. I don't think a gang member has been arrested, much less charged and brought to justice. Do you think this thing is going to work? [00:06:08] Speaker A: Well, when it was announced we were quite, I wouldn't say excited, but we certainly were interested that the government took a different approach or additional approach to utilize part of the constitution to implement the state of emergency. The business community is of the opinion that the curfew would not have been a good idea. Our understanding is that you can have a state of emergency without a curfew or with a curfew, depending on the nature of the circumstance. The curfew is bad for business because we have a lot of business that operates after hours. Manufacturing, janitorial services, security services, gas stations. A lot of essential services do happen after hours. But in addition to that, the criminal element has no regard for the sunlight or sunset because the murders happen in broad daylight in front of police stations. So there's no respect for the authority in any event, no respect for nighttime or anything like that. So the state of emergency is supposed to have the full effect that it is there for whether curfew is there or not. Because if you are doing nefarious activities, you shouldn't be out in the middle of the night. And that is what the police and army should be focusing on. Where these, what are these youths up to? Go and find them wherever they're hiding and take them before the courts. Obviously they're hiding somewhere. We are island nation. They can't cross this border and go to our next country and come back. They right here. Everyone seems to know where the hotspots are apart from the protective services. How can everyone know who is living where and which drug block in control of what and who is that gang member? Which gang? The numbers that they have in which part of the country and if protective services don't know them. That, that is ridiculous. Satish. That is really beyond belief that we have so called intelligence in the any protective services and they're not it not being executed or authorized. And we have two murders already before 12 hours of the year pass. But we're gonna, we want to surpass last year murders rate. [00:08:16] Speaker B: What? Since the announcement of the state of emergency has your membership been operating differently or is it business as usual? [00:08:25] Speaker A: Satisha's business as usual. We are innocent law abiding citizens who have to generate income to pay our workers. We have expenses to pay, mortgage, taxes and we have to conduct our business as normal. In fact, I made the point earlier and I'm wondering now about that Given the fact that the state of emergency empowers and emboldens the protective services to be out there regardless of the time, time of day or night, that businesses would feel safer to open later hours because you would see the. We remember past state of emergencies where you would see police and I mean up and down the street literally every, every few minutes. We're not seeing that. So I'm wondering now if we should be. If we should just close earlier, open later. But in home invasion aspect of crime has infiltrated the society. That, that has also become a normal thing. Unfortunately for senior citizens, the women, for business persons, they can't find any business to come and look for any house, which is the sanctity of your life. You're behind burglar proof, you're behind closed doors and they will break it. They're not. They don't care about the security cameras, dogs, drone technology. What else are we supposed to do? [00:09:41] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:09:42] Speaker A: And it brings me to the other question, such is where the guns and ammunition coming from? It's not coming from a canoe, South Trinidad. They're finding it in port warehouses and some unscrupulous business persons, places of enterprise. [00:09:57] Speaker B: Well, I was actually speaking customs doing their duty. Yeah, I was speaking to somebody from the Coast Guard recently about this very same discussion. And I was asking the individual if it's still. If the route for illegal guns coming into the country, if it's still from Venezuela and all these places. And the individual said that while you do have firearms still coming in from Venezuela and from other ports through boats, it's not as great as these large shipments that are found in these bonds. And the person was telling me that it has shifted. There is a drastic shift into how the illegal guns are coming into the country and the quantity of them coming in at one point in time. And he spoke about the role that customs now has to play, and he spoke about the US Enforcement being the one that identifies these things in more instances than not, and saying to local authorities, well, look, this shipment here, there, whatever else, and that is where a lot of these seizures are taking place. And one would expect that with a state of emergency and this heightened power and everything else, that we're going to see a kind of action that we've not seen before. As I said, the jury's still out on that one. Last year, I know that the business community was very concerned about how Christmas would pan out because the economy, you had people who were complaining that they didn't have the amount of money that they did. They usually do you had issues with customs and businesses being able to clear their goods and that impacted on sales and so on. What was Christmas like for the San Fernando business community? [00:11:52] Speaker A: Christmas was better than expected, of course. It's the busiest shopping period for the entire year. And that did happen in San Fernando and it from our calculations so far, it seems to be even slightly better than the last couple of years. Of course, the pandemic and all the other factors. And we think that we hope it's not the last hurrah because 2025 could be a bit challenging, economically speaking, of course. And I think people went out a little extra for shopping. The persons did get fee before the Christmas period. But what's also happened is that as mentioned, customs, some persons still did not get their goods cleared on time. We unfortunately still have business people with containers on the port that were supposed to be offloaded, cleared and offloaded before Christmas and that did not happen. We have a long carnival period so hopefully they will get some of that stock out before the carnival period. We passed that Boxing Day which was quite successful in San Fernando. We had lines of hundreds of people shopping on Boxing Day in San Fernando, some as early as 5 o'clock, waiting for stores to open. And that was somewhat unusual. We adopted the North American Boxing Day sales strategy which is working out pretty well. The malls were extremely crowded for the entire Boxing Day in south and I think we did pretty well given the challenges that we face. But now as we enter a new year, we have new challenges to deal with and the crime is still ever present and how is that going to impact on us? But we did have a successful park and ride system with Unicot utilizing the park aid on the wharf to utilize a free shuttle service for patrons and business persons during the Christmas period. And that was pretty successful together with. We don't have record in San Fernando, so persons were able to park on the side streets. We did have a significant police and army presence presence during the holiday period, unfortunately. We know of the brutal murder of the woman on the wharf after the hurricane and that was certainly a very unfortunate incident for the family and of course for the society to have the experience after such a safe holiday period that this lady, you know, just visiting her husband in the hospital and. And was shot to death as she, as she exited. This is, this is, this is where we reach as a society. This is, this cannot be accepted any anymore. [00:14:25] Speaker B: You know what I find, whenever we have discussions, what I find so interesting is that San Fernando seems to have found. I don't want to say the solution, but they've found mechanisms to treat with some problems that affect other shopping districts. And the situation seems to be diametrically opposed. Look at Port of Spain as opposed to San Fernando. And you're telling us about this, I don't want to say a bumper Christmas season, but it was much better than you expected. And Port of Spain complaining bitterly that they didn't have the business and they didn't see the sale and all that kind of thing. And you said you raised the issue of parking and you spoke about the wreckers not working in San Fernando and the crime situation not necessarily being as bad in San Fernando as it is in Port of Spain. And those are the factors that impact on somebody wanting to go somewhere to shop. Safety, of course, being of paramount importance. You can't walk in Port of Spain, they're looking to rob you, they're looking to grab your purse or your bag or your chain or some kind of thing. And that has contributed significantly to the decline in people wanting to come into Port of Spain. I mean, I work in Port of Spain and it's very rare that I even walk into Port of Spain to get anything simply because of the crime situation. San Fernando seems to be doing something right. What are the discussions that took place with the stakeholders prior to the Christmas season? Police and the city council, all those kinds of things. Did those discussions take place? [00:16:00] Speaker A: Of course, Satish. We have ongoing meetings. The, the San Fernando Chamber of Commerce has significant, ongoing regular meetings with the senior supernander, the acp, the mayor, the city Council, on, on what we're doing on a daily basis where we expect defenders who are allowed to, to come on the streets for the last two weeks of Christmas and they did adhere somewhat to the regulation. You know, we always have adherent persons who want to break the rules. But defenders were also given a chance and everyone was, I would say, somewhat pleased during the Christmas period. But we continue to work with the mp, the mayor, the police, other business members of the business community to get all views aired as to how do we generate business in San Fernando, how we sustain business, how we expand business, how it makes persons feel safe. So all the factors that you said certainly contribute to Christmas 2024 being better than people were unfortunately crying on before, without waiting for the 31st of December to reach to. Let's see how we actually did perform in business. Stores did open a little later than normal and again, the army did let their presence be felt in San Fernando. And I think all these factors contribute to her. And of course not only that, but our prices are different. What you get in San Fernando, everyone will tell you it is cheaper or more economical than in the northern part of the country. And even downtown is cheaper than if you go to the malls surrounding San Fernando. We have the best deals in, I don't want to say the country, but certainly we challenge other urban areas of business to match San Fernando. And we have. San Fernando is our family. It's about culture. This is something that you don't see. And even people who live in other parts of the country, especially in the north part, and we boast about that San Fernando has that hospitality, that feeling of home. When you come, you feel comfortable. We invite you to come and have an experience in San Fernando that you don't get in other areas when you visit. And we have always engendered that quality, I think that existed in other parts of the country at some point, but it has become so fast paced and again, we tend to mirror North America so much with their lack of culture, the kind of music they listen to, the lack of values. San Fernando still has that segment, that element, that ethnic culture that we treasure and enjoy. And whenever we have that unfortunate incident of crime, it causes us to pause and reflect and say, wait a minute, San Fernando, that is not what we are about. Those persons that come into that, that murder the other day, I'm waiting for the police reports because some people don't operate like that. So we don't know where these, these guys, if they're members of a gang, if they were hired to do a hit, a robbery, we're not sure of the nature of the crime, but we expect that the police will be on top of it. They normally tend to have a higher detection rate in the south and southwestern division as opposed to other parts of the country. So we expect to get some results out of that. When the murder happened with the guy on High Street a couple of years ago, within the same day they were able to recover the stolen items and apprehend suspects. And we await that, you know, maybe the holiday period and the police and army still need to get their gear up and running to the new year started and let's get back to work. The relaxation is over. Let's get to work. Let's get our country back. Let's take it back from the criminal element. It's just a few people who are holding this country to ransom is. And we have 1.4 million people who are afraid to come out their doors, who are free to open for business. This, this can be real These guys. And it's carnival coming up. We all know crime starts to escalate as you go towards carnival because these guys looking for fed money and close money and impress their friends and, and their fancy cars and all these kind of things, you know, this is where we need them to come out and show the full force. [00:20:34] Speaker B: You spoke about the, the atmosphere in San Fernando and how the atmosphere in San Fernando is different from other parts of the country. And you're right. I mean it's, it's been a number of years since last I've been to San Fernando for a busy period like Christmas and walk High street and see the vendors. But when you, when you experience that, it, it makes you, it makes you feel like Christmas being a part of that hustle and bustle and, and, and this street vending, as much as it's, it's, it's cracked down in other parts of the street. Vending is part of who we are. That's part of the experience walking the street. And you have these people and I'm jostling for you. It is all. It adds to the atmosphere, the excitement, the experience for Christmas and so on. And, and from what you're suggesting, it seems as though San Fernando has struck that balance for that success in that element because you often have a fight between business owners and street vendors and that never ends well because there's always some problem. So it's good to know that it's working. As we come to the almost close to the end of interview, let's look ahead to 2025. Year has only just begun. What are some of the expectations for the San Fernando business community? What are some of the things you'd like to see happen in 2025? [00:21:57] Speaker A: Well, of course we're keeping the record Bay. We want to expand the car park facilities for not only the business community, but the shopping public as well. We have several private car parks that have become available for persons to utilize. We want to expand into Sunday shopping, making that more a norm as opposed to exception because stores normally just open for the Christmas period, open a Sunday. So we want to challenge the male downtown area that is to open on Sundays. We have a lot of people who, when they leave their church service and so on on the promenade and the various prayer events that they're looking for something to purchase. They're looking to eat ice cream, buy a popcorn for the kids that they walk because High street and the wharf is ready. The transportation hub is to take it to different parts of the country and it's safe so we encourage and we plead, we continue to plead that business, the police. The job of the Police is not 8 to 4, Monday to Friday, but the job is weekends, public holidays, after hours. We all remember the incident of the guy in Port of Spain trying to jump through the roof of a business place in the middle of the night and the fire service had to come and rescue him. We don't want that happening in San Fernando. If we have that regular patrol, that wouldn't happen. Businesses could stay open later, shoppers would be out later, because then the parking becomes less of an issue after regular hours and on Sundays, when you can freely walk the street and there would still be a little presence of the vendors. And it adds that feeling of family that you can hold your kids and, you know, we have. We have so many situations in San Fernando where a young guy would help a senior citizen to cross the street. If somebody's coming out of a taxi, a gentleman would go to assist an elderly person to come out of a vehicle. We don't record things like that. I mean, that is just our nature as a San Fernando family. And this is what we want to engender for the rest of the country. And we continue to offer lower prices, competitive prices. We know the economy is going. And when we engender all these values, you find that the attraction is there to come to San Fernando. So that there was traffic for the entire Christmas period on High street going into Mukrapo and Poppy street, and the taxis were very abundant. And it says a lot for the community that we represent that we are doing something. And you would hear one or two people crying that, you know, business wasn't good and all that, but where's the evidence? Business wasn't good? Or is it that they're selling something that people don't want to buy? I mean, we have to look at. Just because somebody says something doesn't take it doesn't mean that it is real. But generally, we had a Christmas experience and we want that to continue to Carnival and Easter and Mother's Day, Father's Day and all the other shopping occasions that we have throughout the year. And we expect that will continue once we keep the formula right, we have the experience and we encourage persons to continue. Business is not closing on in San Fernando. We're sustaining it. Persons looking to continues to still invest and expand. And that is why we come back to the situation of crime. If the crime continues, it's going to cause the confidence to fall for persons who want to invest in business, regardless of what part of the country it is or to spend. And we have a stable political system. We have all the right ingredients to ensure the society safer, even foreign investment. But it can't be allowed to be infiltrated by the small percentage of the criminals that feel that they are above the law. So, Satch. [00:26:04] Speaker B: Yeah, that's gonna have to leave our interview here this morning. I want to thank you for being with us. [00:26:08] Speaker A: The best insight, instant feedback, accountability, the all new Talk Radio Freedom 106.5.