TPRC chair: Eddie Hart police post built over NGC gas pipeline

Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor - Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­[email protected]

The con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ing the con­struc­tion of a po­lice post at the Ed­die Hart Sa­van­nah in Tacarigua has deep­ened, with Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (TPRC) chair­man Josi­ah Austin claim­ing the struc­ture was built di­rect­ly over a Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC) gas pipeline.

Austin is now de­mand­ing an­swers from the Gov­ern­ment about what en­gi­neer­ing as­sess­ments were con­duct­ed be­fore con­struc­tion be­gan and whether NGC and oth­er rel­e­vant agen­cies were con­sult­ed.

In a state­ment last evening, Austin said con­struc­tion con­tin­ued de­spite the cor­po­ra­tion’s re­peat­ed calls for mean­ing­ful con­sul­ta­tion be­fore work com­menced.

He said the dis­cov­ery of the pipeline raised se­ri­ous pub­lic safe­ty con­cerns and vin­di­cat­ed the cor­po­ra­tion’s in­sis­tence that prop­er con­sul­ta­tion and ap­provals were nec­es­sary.

“This rais­es a se­ri­ous pub­lic safe­ty con­cern and demon­strates why prop­er con­sul­ta­tion mat­ters. Had the rel­e­vant agen­cies been con­sult­ed be­fore con­struc­tion be­gan, this is­sue could have been iden­ti­fied and ad­dressed from the out­set,” Austin said.

Austin stressed that the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment-con­trolled cor­po­ra­tion was not op­posed to the Gov­ern­ment es­tab­lish­ing a po­lice post at the site.

He said the TPRC sup­port­ed the ini­tia­tive but its con­cern re­mained the process through which con­struc­tion was be­ing un­der­tak­en.

“Our con­cern has nev­er been the project it­self, but the fail­ure to fol­low a trans­par­ent, law­ful and co­or­di­nat­ed process,” he said.

The de­vel­op­ment comes one day af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ac­cused the PNM of de­lib­er­ate­ly at­tempt­ing to frus­trate the Gov­ern­ment’s crime-fight­ing ini­tia­tive af­ter the cor­po­ra­tion halt­ed works at the site on Thurs­day be­fore it re­sumed yes­ter­day un­der the su­per­vi­sion of two Gov­ern­ment min­is­ters.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­scribed the de­ci­sion as an “evil and vile act” and ac­cused the PNM of fight­ing against the es­tab­lish­ment of a po­lice post while hav­ing “no prob­lem with drug blocks in Tu­na­puna.”

Austin had main­tained that the cor­po­ra­tion stopped the works be­cause it re­ceived no pri­or com­mu­ni­ca­tion about what was be­ing con­struct­ed at the ground, which falls un­der its ju­ris­dic­tion. He said en­gi­neers from the cor­po­ra­tion vis­it­ed the site af­ter learn­ing that con­trac­tors had be­gun work and in­sist­ed the TPRC sim­ply want­ed in­for­ma­tion and com­pli­ance with the nec­es­sary process­es.

In his lat­est state­ment, Austin al­so took is­sue with a re­port­ed com­ment from Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der that the mat­ter was “not my busi­ness.”

“I re­spect­ful­ly dis­agree,” Austin said, ar­gu­ing that while he had a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to raise mat­ters af­fect­ing com­mu­ni­ty safe­ty, the min­is­ter al­so had a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to en­sure fa­cil­i­ties be­ing con­struct­ed for the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice were safe and prop­er­ly planned.

Austin said the Gov­ern­ment must now dis­close what en­gi­neer­ing as­sess­ments were con­duct­ed be­fore con­struc­tion be­gan, whether NGC and oth­er rel­e­vant agen­cies were con­sult­ed and what ac­tion would be tak­en giv­en the lo­ca­tion of the struc­ture over the pipeline.

The Ed­die Hart post is among 30 po­lice posts the Gov­ern­ment plans to es­tab­lish across the coun­try over the next four months for use by joint po­lice-army units. The posts are ex­pect­ed to serve as op­er­a­tional bases for joint forces and are be­ing po­si­tioned near com­mu­ni­ties, ma­jor roads, trans­port routes and busy junc­tions.