Ancel Roget, head of the Joint Trade Union Movement, claims that the Government is turning a blind eye to the fact that young black males are the main perpetrators of crime in this country, because it could affect its supporter base.
Speaking at JTUM’s post-Budget news briefing yesterday at CWU Hall in Port-of-Spain, Roget said:
“The demographics in that, that some people do not like to hear, the majority of persons that we know, we see committing those crimes are young black men, they don’t like to hear it but let me say it because I am not afraid to say it,” Roget declared.
“They are at the lowest rung of the economic ladder in a cesspool of hopelessness where they feel that the only way out is crime and criminal activity.”
Roget blamed the Dr Keith Rowley-led Government for not taking an interest in finding out why “this group is so predisposed to committing all these murders.
“And I’m not saying that other groups don’t eh, because you now have the Venezuelan criminals joining gangs and also committing murders. But the majority, and I would like anybody to contest me, the majority of those persons committing those dastardly acts are young African males,” Roget posited.
He accused the Government of ignoring the issue so as not to upset a segment of their supporters.
“While they will look for this group to support them, they will never do anything to lift those who are the lowest rung of the economic ladder out of the doldrums they are in. And once you continue to support them, to be PNM until you’re dead, you will be a dead PNM-mite,” Roget postulated.
He warned whom he called “PNM sycophants” to be aware that their political affiliation would not save them from the horrors of crime.
“So, they can rant and rave and misbehave, pull out their weave, pull out their hair, call-in in their talk show programmes with their sycophants, that is the reality.
“And you know the reality is that they too will be impacted and the only time that they feel it is when the criminal comes home, when they invade their home or when they kick people on the streets in full view of the population.”