United National Congress (UNC) Senator, David Nakhid has called for the intervention of members of the protective services to help secure schools in crime-hot spots.
During the party’s weekly press briefing from its headquarters in Chaguanas yesterday morning, Nakhid made reference to the murders in East Port-of-Spain last week of 50-year-old Amoa Howe, who was shot dead outside the Gloster Lodge Moravian Primary School, and 12-year-old Ezekiel Paria, who was shot in his head by a stray bullet while riding his bicycle near his Laventille home.
Nakhid said: “Children cannot continue to be traumatised. Whether you deploy some of the army or whether you deploy our police, we are calling for an immediate deployment in those areas to protect our children.”
“Our children cannot keep getting gunned down every day. It is impossible,” he added.
Nakhid also called on the Government to take steps to “starve” gangs of their human resource.
“You have to target. You have to surgically go into the communities and put programmes so people can have an alternative to picking up a gun and can find a job,” he said.
Nakhid again warned that crime would continue unless poverty is addressed.
He also took aim at Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley, who attended Guyana’s Energy Conference and Supply Chain Expo last week, accusing him of failing to show compassion for victims of crime by visiting some of them.
“He is not only an absentee, he has absconded,” Nakhid declared.
The Opposition Senator also called for trade unions and NGOs aligned to high crime areas to break their silence on the country’s crime situation.
“I am calling on all these committees and their figureheads, who like to have one event a year so we can play African for a day, I am calling on you all to start to hold them to account,” he said.