TSTT fire may have been an inside job, says Padarath

SHAS­TRI BOODAN

GML Con­trib­u­tor

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath says in­ves­ti­ga­tors are con­sid­er­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty that both in­sid­ers and out­siders were in­volved in a sus­pect­ed ar­son at­tack at a Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Ser­vices of Trinidad and To­ba­go (TSTT) com­pound in Laven­tille on Sat­ur­day.

Mil­lions of dol­lars in loss­es are feared af­ter the blaze, which re­port­ed­ly start­ed at about 4.45 pm, en­gulfed the com­pound and con­tin­ued in­to the night.

Asked by Guardian Me­dia whether the in­ci­dent could have been an in­side job, Padarath said: “I am told that it might be a col­lab­o­ra­tion of both.”

He said in­ves­ti­ga­tors were ex­am­in­ing pos­si­ble in­volve­ment by peo­ple with­in and out­side the com­pa­ny, in­clud­ing ser­vice providers.

“We have our own the­o­ry in terms of pos­si­ble in­volve­ment of those who may be in­side of the com­pa­ny, out­side of the com­pa­ny, ser­vice providers, etc. But all of those things are sus­pi­cions right now that I know are re­ceiv­ing the at­ten­tion of the au­thor­i­ties,” he said.

Padarath was speak­ing at Sat­ur­day’s Di­vali cel­e­bra­tions host­ed by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC) at Cam­den Road, Cou­va.

He said TSTT’s cop­per had been put out to pub­lic ten­der, with some of the ma­te­r­i­al stored at the Laven­tille fa­cil­i­ty.

“It is one of the great­est as­sets of TSTT and there­fore the cop­per from TSTT was housed par­tial­ly at that fa­cil­i­ty,” he said.

Padarath point­ed to an in­crease in van­dal­ism and cop­per theft tar­get­ing TSTT, sug­gest­ing that the po­ten­tial sale of the met­al could have been a mo­tive for the sus­pect­ed ar­son at­tack.

“The sus­pect­ed ar­son at­tack was mo­ti­vat­ed by the sale of that cop­per,” he said, adding that oth­er is­sues sur­round­ing the fa­cil­i­ty could al­so have con­tributed to the in­ci­dent.

He stressed, how­ev­er, that sus­pi­cions about pos­si­ble in­volve­ment by in­sid­ers and out­siders re­mained un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

“The cop­per alone, I am ad­vised, is worth tens of mil­lions of dol­lars,” Padarath said, adding that se­cu­ri­ty was present at the site.

He said he was in con­stant com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the au­thor­i­ties and re­ceiv­ing reg­u­lar up­dates.

“I am ap­prised minute by minute, ball by ball,” he said.

The min­is­ter in­tend­ed to vis­it the scene on Sat­ur­day night, once the Fire Ser­vice had giv­en the all-clear.

De­scrib­ing the blaze as mas­sive, Padarath said it rep­re­sent­ed a sig­nif­i­cant blow to TSTT’s as­sets. He al­so ex­pressed con­cern about the fire spread­ing to An­gos­tu­ra, which he said had al­ready been af­fect­ed.

Padarath said the full ex­tent of the loss­es would be de­ter­mined af­ter in­ves­ti­ga­tions and dam­age as­sess­ments were com­plet­ed.

“We would on­ly know that by to­mor­row and the days pre­ced­ing be­cause of the fact that a num­ber of stor­age is­sues arise there,” he said.

He ex­plained that the dam­age could ex­tend be­yond the cop­per to in­clude in­vest­ments in ren­o­va­tion work at the fa­cil­i­ty and oth­er stored ma­te­ri­als.

Au­thor­i­ties would al­so need to con­sult An­gos­tu­ra af­ter the fire was con­tained to as­sess the im­pact on the com­pa­ny, he added.

Padarath fur­ther re­vealed that po­lice had re­cent­ly in­formed him of ar­rests in­volv­ing peo­ple sus­pect­ed of steal­ing cop­per for ship­ment through Ica­cos and oth­er lo­ca­tions.

“Those are some of the things that ob­vi­ous­ly we will be deeply con­cerned about. And se­cu­ri­ty has al­ready been no­ti­fied,” he said.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors are ex­pect­ed to es­tab­lish the cause of the fire, as­sess the ex­tent of the dam­age and de­ter­mine whether any­one was in­volved in the sus­pect­ed ar­son at­tack.