Opposition Leader blasts Kamla over new SoE

'UNC Govt has no crime plan'

Opposition People's National Movement (PNM) leader Penny Beckles says there is no crime plan by the Kamla Persad-Bissessar Government.Beckles says the declaration of yet another State of Emergency by Persad-Bissessar has confirmed beyond any reasonable doubt that the UNC Government has completely failed in its ability to address crime in any meaningful ways."... And that (Government) intends to erode the rights of law-abiding citizens and to govern the nation under a permanent SoE," she added, calling on the Prime Minister to address citizens today.In a Facebook statement prior to a 10 am media conference by the PNM, Beckles added, "This second SoE in under a year proves the Government has no crime plan, only excuses and authoritarian overreach. T&T deserves real solutions, not rule by emergency. Either the Government shapes up or ships out immediately."

She added, "This Government continues to embarrass itself and has become a regional and global laughingstock. It is clear that Kamla Persad-Bissessar has forgotten her words when the 2024 State of Emergency was declared, where she said, 'This State of Emergency is a shameless political gimmick… Let us be clear: this government has no real plan to tackle crime.' She has once again found herself presiding over and enabling chaos with absolutely no plan, despite promising the world in the 2025 general election.

"This Government has demonstrated time and again that it prefers authoritarian measures over sound, strategic crime management, and once again, it has chosen to restrict the freedoms of citizens rather than address the systemic problems of crime."Beckles also predicted that this second SoE would follow the path of the first

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 (PNM) leader Penny Beckles says there is no crime plan by the Kamla Persad-Bissessar Government.

So over the past decade, what was the PNM plan, Penny? Explain, over 5,000 murders, was that your plan?

Beckles says the declaration of yet another State of Emergency by Persad-Bissessar has confirmed beyond any reasonable doubt that the UNC Government has completely failed in its ability to address crime in any meaningful ways."...

Did the PNM not have an SOE? So the PNM was a failure?

T&T deserves real solutions, not rule by emergency. Either the Government shapes up or ships out immediately."

Your PNM had no solution for the crime rate in T&T:

4th murders per capita

6th in crime per capita.

Penny, did you notice the % of both of the above lately...they have dropped.

Why didn't you support ZOSO? Oh, it would have been administered in PNM voter strongholds...huh?

This is what your party hatched for a decade, as your PNM lacked leadership.

Keep doing as Rowley did for 10 years; blame the UNC. You are expecting such radical changes after 10 months at the helm.

I can quote Hinds, but that's a waste of time. Ironically, you seem to be lacking the same thing he did.

Penny has zero thoughts! 😅

@BeatDball

A quick look at the political opposition in Trinidad and Tobago shows a slate of recycled figures and stale ideas, people the electorate has already weighed and rejected. Yet, despite that verdict, they continue to behave as if public trust is owed to them by default.

For the last decade especially, the PNM has leaned heavily on a blame-first strategy, using the UNC as a convenient shield for problems that have festered for generations, including under long stretches of PNM rule. It’s hard to take lectures about governance seriously from a party that has spent so much time in office while so many communities remain trapped in the same conditions year after year.

And the reality is uncomfortable: many of the areas most associated with persistent crime and social breakdown are also long-standing PNM strongholds, Belmont, Sea Lots, Laventille, Beetham Gardens, and La Brea among them. These communities have endured chronic underdevelopment, inadequate services, and limited economic opportunity dating back to the Eric Williams era. Sixty-plus years later, too many residents are still being asked to survive on the margins while being treated as political dependents, valuable at election time and neglected the rest of the year. If the PNM has held power for the better part of five decades, then it cannot keep dodging responsibility for the outcomes in the very constituencies it claims as its base.

The same applies to economic power. Under Eric Williams, certain minority merchant groups, often cited as Syrian and Lebanese families, were able to access opportunities and protections that many Afro-Trinidadians did not receive on equal terms. Whatever the origin story, the result today is a highly concentrated economy, where a small segment holds disproportionate influence. That imbalance didn’t appear overnight, and it cannot be discussed honestly without acknowledging the policy choices and patronage networks that helped shape it.

What makes the PNM’s current posture even less credible is its recent period of drift, months of internal uncertainty and weak direction, followed by loud criticism of problems it had a direct hand in creating or entrenching. It’s one thing to scrutinize a sitting government; it’s another to pretend you weren’t part of the setup.

If the opposition wants to be taken seriously, it needs more than outrage and revisionist history. It needs to explain why so many long-neglected communities remained shunned under its watch and why the country should believe that the same political machinery, rebranded, will deliver different results this time.

Sarge

@sgtdjones

Perfectly put Sgt! 3 cheers. 👏