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Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath says the Gov­ern­ment may again ap­proach the Op­po­si­tion and In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors for sup­port for the long-de­bat­ed Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSO) leg­is­la­tion—and he is of­fer­ing his own con­stituen­cy as one of the first ar­eas to be des­ig­nat­ed.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia on Car­ni­val Mon­day in Port-of-Spain, Padarath said re­cent vi­o­lent mur­ders and shoot­ings re­in­forced the need to re­vis­it the mea­sure, which pre­vi­ous­ly failed to se­cure enough votes in the Sen­ate.

“Crime con­tin­ues to be a con­cern of ours. You would re­call we have the ZOSO bill. And, I think that des­per­ate times call for des­per­ate mea­sures, and there­fore we re­al­ly need to con­cen­trate on re­newed strate­gies to ad­dress the crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty in the coun­try,” he said.