Attorney-at-Law and Chairman of the Tobago Business Chamber, Martin George says, he do not understand and he would never understand why there is a debate about police officers taking their firearms in court when there is judicial policy that prohibits the officers from doing so.
00:00I don't understand how there's even, you know, a debate on that. The Chief Justice
00:09is 100% correct on this matter. In other words, the Chief Justice is in control of
00:16the judiciary and he's responsible for the judiciary's buildings and facilities
00:21and therefore they are the ones who make the rules and regulations governing the
00:27use of those buildings. The Attorney-at-Law, who was a member of the Police
00:32Service Commission, recounted an incident which took place in Jamaica earlier this
00:36year, where a prisoner disarmed a police officer of his firearm. Remember in
00:41Jamaica, some months ago, when a prisoner was being escorted out of the court, the
00:48prisoner was able to grab a police officer's gun and be able to, you know,
00:54escape. Thankfully, he didn't shoot the officer, but the point is, with the gun in
00:59his hand, the police officer had to let him go. He says, if there's a particular
01:04case that requires the officer to have his firearm on his person for extra
01:08security, concessions can be made with the Chief Justice. If it is that there's
01:13some particularly high-profile, you know, person being, you know, before the courts
01:19who there is really the need for extra security, then you have discussions with
01:24the Chief Justice and you say, well, look, Chief, in this case, we are asking, would
01:29you be able to allow these particular officers, you give the names of the
01:33officers, you give the types of weapons that they would be carrying, etc. And, I
01:38mean, the Chief Justice is not unreasonable. I'm sure he will then be
01:41able to say, well, okay, look, in this particular instance, yes, we will allow it.
01:45And on the issue of Forex, George says the Forex situation is affecting everyone,
01:49from business owners, students studying abroad, as well as people who have to go
01:54abroad for medical treatment. He suggests that the government implement the
01:58Foreign Investment Act.
02:15You are coming with foreign exchange. They're not coming with TT dollars. They're coming with foreign exchange. So, therefore, you have massive inflows of foreign exchange immediately. And as I said, this spillover and benefit to Trinidad is obvious. Because if somebody's constructing a small hotel, where would most of the materials have to come from? From Trinidad? Sometimes even, you know, the engineering support, the labor, etc. Some of it may have to come up from Trinidad, you know, because you may not have the full capacity in
02:44Tobago. So, therefore, the inflows of foreign exchange will benefit everyone.
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