Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry of Sport and Youth Affairs, Senator David Nakhid, is refuting claims that the Zones of Special Operations (ZOSO) Bill could stigmatise communities or tarnish T&T’s international reputation.
Speaking on Trinidad and Tobago Today, he insisted that honesty about conditions on the ground and decisive action are essential to restoring public safety and restoring dignity to residents.
He dismissed concerns that this heightened security measure would raise red flags internationally, pointing to travel advisories which were issued under previous Governments.
“What we’ve seen in the past, from 2020, foreign embassies were issuing travel warnings in Port of Spain and in Varennes, Belmont, Laventille, Morvant, and that was an illegal PNM government. So when they come with that duplicitous argument that it’s going to damage our international, abject nonsense. What we’re doing is showing to the international community that we have taken a decisive stance in uplifting those communities. And you will see, you know, you have to implement things before you can make an assessment of it, correct?”
Responding to concerns that designating certain areas as “hotspots” may further marginalise vulnerable communities, he argued that refusing to name the problem is part of the reason crime has flourished.
“Well, you know, we have a level of hypocrisy in Trinidad and Tobago that I like to call out and address. But it’s a hot spot. It’s a hot spot. People can’t move in their communities. People can’t go from one street to the next. There’s a level of crime. They’re lowest on the social indices of education, healthcare, mental health. It’s a hotspot. What are you gonna call it, a cool spot? What are you gonna call it, a good spot? We don’t see people going into these communities from out of those communities. People go into those communities who live there and they don’t live proper lives there. They are not involved in the mainstream there. So we can continue to hide behind our finger, as we say in Arabic, or we can address the issue.”