PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad – Prime Minister Kamla Persad Bissessar today defended her administration’s decision to impose a state of emergency (SOE) on Trinidad and Tobago, saying it was meeting the objective for which it was intended, including a reduction in crime.
Speaking during the debate on the TT$54.6 billion (US$9.1 billion) budget in Parliament, Persad Bissessar she had “no regret “in imposing the SOE which has been in place here, together with a five-hour curfew since August 21.
“I say unabashedly, I have absolutely no regret that we took the decision based on the advice of the security forces to put a state of emergency in Trinidad and Tobago.
“Never have our people felt safer, Mr. Speaker and never has crime been down to where it is today,” she said, accusing the main opposition People’s National Movement (PNM) of wanting the population to “forget the multiple promises to deal with crime and failure so to do.
“They want us to forget,” she said, noting that the number of people or murdered during the period of the SOE had declined drastically as compared to the period when the PNM was in office.
Prime Minister Persad Bissessar said that despite the SOE, Trinidad and Tobago had been voted the World’s Best Tourist Destination for 2012 and has also been declared the Favourite Cultural Destination in 2012.
She said that the announcement was made on October 9 when tourism organisations from 27 European Union member states voted unanimously during the Autumn Meeting of the European Union Council on Tourism and Trade in Bucharest, Romania.
As a result, she dismissed the suggestion that the SOE had affected the tourism sector here. (CMC)
