UNC corporations ready to facilitate police posts

Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­[email protected]

While con­struc­tion of the Gov­ern­ment’s new po­lice posts has al­ready be­gun in some ar­eas, chair­men of Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress-con­trolled re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions say they have not yet been for­mal­ly con­sult­ed or ful­ly briefed on the de­tails sur­round­ing the ini­tia­tive.

How­ev­er, they are not crit­i­cis­ing the Gov­ern­ment over the lack of con­sul­ta­tion, say­ing the ini­tia­tive was on­ly an­nounced days ago and they ex­pect the nec­es­sary dis­cus­sions and in­for­ma­tion to come in due course.

But all of them said they in­tend to work with Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment to fa­cil­i­tate the process and en­sure the posts are built, say­ing their com­mu­ni­ties want and need the in­creased se­cu­ri­ty pres­ence.

They al­so ac­knowl­edged that where new struc­tures are to be built, there is an es­tab­lished plan­ning and ap­proval process which could in­volve the mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions dur­ing the con­struc­tion phase.

The com­ments come amid con­tro­ver­sy over the start of con­struc­tion of a po­lice post at the Ed­die Hart Sa­van­nah in Tacarigua, where the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment-con­trolled Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (TPRC) halt­ed works on Thurs­day, af­ter say­ing it had re­ceived no pri­or com­mu­ni­ca­tion about the project.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar sub­se­quent­ly ac­cused the PNM of at­tempt­ing to frus­trate the Gov­ern­ment’s crime-fight­ing ini­tia­tive, while Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les main­tained es­tab­lished le­gal and ad­min­is­tra­tive pro­ce­dures still had to be fol­lowed.

But in UNC-con­trolled cor­po­ra­tions ear­marked to ben­e­fit from the ini­tia­tive, chair­men told Guardian Me­dia that al­though they too are await­ing the fin­er de­tails, they are ready to fa­cil­i­tate it be­cause they ful­ly sup­port the an­ti-crime dri­ve.

Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Ryan Ram­per­sad said both past and present coun­cils had been ag­gres­sive­ly lob­by­ing for a stronger se­cu­ri­ty pres­ence with­in the mu­nic­i­pal­i­ty for years.

The mu­nic­i­pal­i­ty stands to ben­e­fit from at least six posts, four with­in the CT­TRC and an­oth­er two along its bor­der with the Princes Town Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, which Ram­per­sad said would al­so serve its res­i­dents.

On whether ap­proval from the re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tion would be re­quired, Ram­per­sad not­ed that there were var­i­ous cat­e­gories of de­vel­op­ment un­der plan­ning laws and some works could fall un­der per­mis­si­ble de­vel­op­ment, which would not re­quire ap­proval from a mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tion.

“I have every con­fi­dence that the rel­e­vant State agen­cies will en­sure that all ap­plic­a­ble le­gal and reg­u­la­to­ry re­quire­ments are com­plied with,” Ram­per­sad said.

He said the ini­tia­tive was be­ing led by Gov­ern­ment through the rel­e­vant min­istries and agen­cies, and would come at no fi­nan­cial cost to the cor­po­ra­tion.

“As de­tails con­tin­ue to be rolled out, we will work col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly with the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties wher­ev­er nec­es­sary to en­sure the suc­cess­ful im­ple­men­ta­tion of the pro­gramme with­in our mu­nic­i­pal­i­ty,” he said.

Ram­per­sad said he sim­i­lar­ly ex­pects the de­sign spec­i­fi­ca­tions and op­er­a­tional de­tails, in­clud­ing ex­act­ly what the fa­cil­i­ties will look like and how they will func­tion, to be re­leased in due course.

“What is im­por­tant at this stage is that this Gov­ern­ment has demon­strat­ed its com­mit­ment to strength­en­ing na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty through a proac­tive ap­proach,” he said.

“We whole­heart­ed­ly wel­come this ini­tia­tive be­cause it will bring a greater se­cu­ri­ty pres­ence in­to our com­mu­ni­ties, im­prove re­sponse times, and pro­vide re­as­sur­ance to law-abid­ing cit­i­zens.”

Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Gow­tam Ma­haraj al­so said he has so far on­ly seen the pub­licly an­nounced list of lo­ca­tions and has not yet had a sit-down dis­cus­sion on how the posts will op­er­ate.

Ma­haraj, how­ev­er, said this was not un­usu­al, giv­en how re­cent­ly the ini­tia­tive was an­nounced. He ex­plained that build­ing ap­pli­ca­tions gen­er­al­ly move through the es­tab­lished plan­ning sys­tem be­fore even­tu­al­ly reach­ing the cor­po­ra­tion for the rel­e­vant tech­ni­cal as­sess­ments and ap­provals.

Ma­haraj said re­gard­less of the own­er­ship of the land, if an ap­pli­ca­tion re­quir­ing the cor­po­ra­tion’s in­volve­ment is sub­mit­ted, it would even­tu­al­ly go be­fore the body through the nor­mal process. And when that time comes, Ma­haraj said Pe­nal/Debe will be ready.

“We will do all that is nec­es­sary,” he said, adding that the cor­po­ra­tion was pre­pared to wel­come the in­creased po­lice pres­ence.

Ma­haraj said he did not be­lieve pro­ce­dur­al re­quire­ments should be­come an ob­sta­cle to im­prov­ing se­cu­ri­ty.

“I don’t think there is any process that will be in such vi­o­la­tion that the par­ties can­not come to­geth­er and en­sure that there is no de­lay at all,” he said.

De­clar­ing that he was “ready as of yes­ter­day” to work to­wards get­ting the post es­tab­lished, Ma­haraj said process­es could ei­ther be used to de­lay projects or to fa­cil­i­tate them.

“Process­es are not big­ger than peo­ple,” he said.

“We are the of­fice hold­ers and we must be able to work process­es in a man­ner that is [re­spon­sive] to the needs of the peo­ple.”

Ma­haraj made it clear there would be no at­tempt from his cor­po­ra­tion to hold up the ini­tia­tive.

“There is go­ing to be no de­lay. We are go­ing to en­sure that it hap­pens.”

Princes Town Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Gowrie Roop­nar­ine said his cor­po­ra­tion had al­so not yet re­ceived the op­er­a­tional de­tails or doc­u­men­ta­tion for the pro­posed posts in that mu­nic­i­pal­i­ty.

Roop­nar­ine said the cor­po­ra­tion had, how­ev­er, been told its mu­nic­i­pal po­lice would be ex­pect­ed to work along­side the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice.

He said no con­struc­tion had start­ed and the cor­po­ra­tion was still un­aware whether Gov­ern­ment in­tend­ed to con­struct new build­ings or utilise ex­ist­ing struc­tures.

“So, that part of it, we were not sure at this time,” he said.

Roop­nar­ine said whether mu­nic­i­pal ap­proval would be re­quired could ul­ti­mate­ly de­pend on the type of fa­cil­i­ty be­ing used. If Gov­ern­ment utilis­es an ex­ist­ing build­ing that al­ready has the nec­es­sary ap­provals, he said there may be no need to re­turn to the cor­po­ra­tion for ap­proval.

But should the cor­po­ra­tion’s as­sis­tance be re­quired, Roop­nar­ine said it would be pro­vid­ed.

“At least there will be a great help for the re­gion of Princes Town,” he said.

“So, in any way we can pass for­ward any sup­port they want from our de­part­ment, we will be will­ing to work with them to en­sure that that hap­pens.”

Roop­nar­ine said the cor­po­ra­tion has not yet been told whether the fa­cil­i­ties will func­tion as mi­ni po­lice sta­tions or sim­ply bases for of­fi­cers, whether re­ports can be made there or what equip­ment they will con­tain.

“Those de­tails, we haven’t got that as yet,” he said, not­ing that he un­der­stood fur­ther dis­cus­sions were ex­pect­ed.

Ma­yaro/Rio Claro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Ray­mond Co­zi­er said an area at In­di­an Bay had been iden­ti­fied for a post, but con­struc­tion had not yet be­gun and no re­quest for ap­proval had reached the cor­po­ra­tion.

Co­zi­er stressed, how­ev­er, that the ab­sence of an ap­pli­ca­tion at this stage should not be in­ter­pret­ed as a dis­pute with the Gov­ern­ment.

“We would not take a fight [with] Gov­ern­ment for try­ing to do some­thing good,” Co­zi­er said.

“We would just like to en­sure that the things are done, the plans are drawn, and we will try to ex­pe­dite things in a prop­er or­der.”

Co­zi­er said the cor­po­ra­tion stood ready to as­sist.

“We wel­come the ini­tia­tive, and I think every right-think­ing cit­i­zen will wel­come an ini­tia­tive as such,” he said.

“So, we haven’t re­ceived any re­quest, or we haven’t seen any draw­ing or any­thing of the sort, but we stand ready to work and sup­port the ini­tia­tive.”

He ex­plained that any new build­ing would or­di­nar­i­ly go through an es­tab­lished process in­volv­ing draw­ings, en­gi­neer­ing in­spec­tions, pub­lic health re­quire­ments and ul­ti­mate­ly the cor­po­ra­tion.

Co­zi­er has al­so not yet been giv­en de­tails about what the po­lice posts will look like, how they will op­er­ate, what equip­ment they will con­tain or whether mem­bers of the pub­lic will be able to make re­ports there. How­ev­er, he said the area’s MP had con­tact­ed the cor­po­ra­tion to ad­vise it about the ini­tia­tive.

Asked about the ab­sence of those de­tails, he added, “I as­sume they will come even­tu­al­ly.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced on Mon­day that the Gov­ern­ment in­tends to es­tab­lish 30 joint po­lice and mil­i­tary posts across Trinidad and To­ba­go over the next four months, with six ad­di­tion­al lo­ca­tions still to be de­ter­mined.

The posts are in­tend­ed to serve as op­er­a­tional bases for joint po­lice and mil­i­tary pa­trols and place se­cu­ri­ty per­son­nel clos­er to com­mu­ni­ties, ma­jor roads, trans­port routes and busy junc­tions.