PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad – The administration of Dr. Keith Rowley is said to be failing in the fight against crime and violence.
According to a poll commissioned by the Trinidad Guardian newspaper, of the 75 percent of respondents, 36 percent said the situation was very bad, 39 percent described it as bad, while five percent either refused comment or did not know.
The poll conducted by media and market research consultants HHB and Associates also found that 72 percent expressed little or no confidence that Government would be able to solve the problems related to crime and violence.
The poll also stated that two years into the tenure of the People’s National Movement (PNM) administration, 83 percent of the respondents believed that the twin island republic is “going in the wrong direction”.
In this new survey of the government’s performance, 32 percent said they approved of the job Rowley is doing as Prime Minister, however, opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar fared slightly better with her job rating with 43 percent of respondents saying they approve of the job she is doing.
However, the poll showed a significant relationship between job approval and race for the two leaders – 53 percent of Afro-Trinbagonians and 16 percent of Indo-Trinbagonians approved of Rowley’s performance as Prime Minister .
On the other hand, 62 per cent of Indo-Trinbagonians approve of the job Persad-Bissessar is doing compared with 43 per cent of Afro-Trinbagonians.
On the issue of unemployment, 83 percent rated Government’s performance as being either very bad or bad and overall, 69 per cent expressed little or no confidence that the Government would be able to solve the problems related to unemployment.
The survey, which had a margin of error of less than or equal to five percent at the 95 percent confidence level, was conducted by phone between September 1 and 3 using a random sample of 301 adults aged 18 and over and was drawn from HHB and Associates’ national, representative adult panel. – CMC
