Businessmen not sharing crime video footage with police

SHAS­TRI BOODAN

Busi­ness own­ers are not shar­ing vi­tal se­cu­ri­ty cam­era footage with the po­lice. This rev­e­la­tion came from Mukesh Ram­s­ingh, the pres­i­dent of the Cou­va-Point Lisas Cham­ber of Com­merce (CPLCC).

Ram­s­ingh said shar­ing of video is vi­tal in the crime fight­ing process.

“It is mak­ing it hard­er and more dif­fi­cult for the po­lice to track the crim­i­nals,” he said.

The CPLCC pres­i­dent told Guardian Me­dia when the po­lice ap­proached the own­ers of build­ings in the vicin­i­ty of crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties, they are most­ly be­ing told that cam­eras are not work­ing. 

Ram­s­ingh said the CPLCC and mem­bers of the pub­lic are con­cerned about the lev­el of crime in Cen­tral Trinidad, and that the CPLCC has done what it can to as­sist the po­lice.

“They are try­ing their best, but there is so much that they can do. Around this time, we do ex­pect a hike in crime.”

CPLCC President Mukesh Ramsingh, right, speaks with vendor Roger Ramlochan. [Image by SHASTRI BOODAN]

Ram­s­ingh ad­mit­ted that busi­ness is much slow­er than ex­pect­ed.

“The new busi­ness mod­el now, af­ter speak­ing with sev­er­al busi­ness­es, is if you don’t have a heavy so­cial me­dia pres­ence it’s very hard to get sales,” he ex­plained. “Peo­ple are com­ing out to get what they have to and go back.”

The CPLCC boss point­ed out that con­sumers are plac­ing a pri­or­i­ty on food items in­stead of gifts.  He said busi­ness­men have tak­en the de­ci­sion to not in­vest heav­i­ly in toys.

“Es­tab­lished toy stores can see a hike in sales, but many busi­ness­es are steer­ing far from in­vest­ing in toys since they do not ex­pect a large vol­ume of sales in this area for Christ­mas be­cause of re­duced con­sumer spend­ing pow­er,” Ram­s­ingh said.