“Government should concentrate on putting resources to be able to fix the justice system in Trinidad and Tobago.” So said former attorney general Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj during a workers’ meeting hosted by Democracy Watch, held at the Chamber of Industry and Commerce office in Couva.
On Wednesday, at a public consultation on prison reform, Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi said it cost the State approximately $25,000 a month to provide for each prisoner, which amounts to more than $50 million a month ($600 million annually) for the 2,235 inmates.
There have been complaints about the length of time many prisoners must wait before facing trial while enduring poor conditions in the nation’s prisons.
To reduce the number of inmates in custody, among the suggestions made were decriminalisation of marijuana possession and other minor offences and implementation of a ticketing system for some offences. Lamenting T&T’s increasing crime statistics, Maharaj said he could not understand why Government was spending so much money on national security yet could not catch the criminals.
“We do not have at this time a DNA bank in Trinidad and Tobago to be able to match DNA on the scene of a crime, to be able to identify the person who commits the crime. And we are spending all this money on crime and you cannot catch the criminals,” he said.
Pointing to the murders of several prisons officers, Maharaj said despite surveillance equipment, the killers have not been caught. Maharaj is lead attorney for the Prison Officers Association, which has filed legal action against the State for failing to put measures in place to protect them.
“How many people have been killed in Trinidad and Tobago? Look at the murders, look at the crime and all of this mid-year review can be totally useless to the population unless the people are put first,” Maharaj said.
He said that the crime detection rate can improve if the justice system was fixed. He said when he was Attorney General, the United States Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) was brought in to assist in bringing down the crime rate. Under his tenure, ten men were executed by the State in 1999 for murder, the last time the death penalty was carried out in T&T.
“The Government has surrendered to the criminals already. They have in effect said they cannot do anything about crime. They cannot carry out the death sentence, the last government did it, the present government has done it and the people are suffering,” Maharaj said.
He called on Government to unveil its crime plan, saying unless a comprehensive plan to fix the justice system is rolled out, crime will continue to spiral out of control.
Protect workers’ rights—Abdulah
Addressing the issue of job losses, political leader of the Movement for Social Justice (MSJ) David Abdulah renewed his call for Government to pass legislation to protect workers.
“We have workers who are being exploited by ArcelorMittal in a situation where the company comes in, makes plenty, leaves and pays not a cent of severance pay to workers.
“The workers cannot get their pension, which is deferred income, because the company has gone into liquidation,” Abdulah said. “In this economic crisis, the poor people must not bear the brunt of adjustment.”
Saying thousands of people have lost their jobs, Abdulah added: “We are calling on Government to pass legislation, retroactively if necessary, to make sure that intra-company transfers are not allowed to happen.
“We want them to pass legislation to ensure that the workers get their pension funds even though the company has gone into liquidation.”
Nirvan Maharaj, president of the All Trinidad General Workers Trade Union, called on workers to band together to fight oppression. He said it was time for people to stop voting along racial lines. Also speaking at the meeting were president of the Used Car Dealers Association Visham Babwah, president of the Single Father’s Association Rhondall Feeles and MSJ deputy political leader Akins Vidale.