Contentious police post at Eddie Hart Ground completed

PE­TER CHRISTO­PHER

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

pe­ter.christo­[email protected]

De­spite a meet­ing set to be held to­day be­tween the Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (TPRC) and the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (Ude­cott), the con­tentious po­lice post at the Ed­die Hart Grounds in Tacarigua has been in­stalled at the lo­ca­tion.

Yes­ter­day morn­ing, two Gov­ern­ment min­is­ters took to so­cial me­dia to con­firm the pre­fab­ri­cat­ed struc­ture had been placed on the foun­da­tion that start­ed a back-and-forth be­tween Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials and the TPRC.

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter and Tu­na­puna Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment Roger Alexan­der’s so­cial me­dia page stat­ed, “For Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Tu­na­puna and Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty, the Ho­n­ourable Roger Alexan­der, Sun­day morn­ing means be­ing on the ground and get­ting the job done.

“Bright and ear­ly this morn­ing, Min­is­ter Alexan­der was at the Ed­die Hart Grounds in Tacarigua, en­sur­ing that the con­tain­er for the new Army/Po­lice Post was prop­er­ly po­si­tioned as prepa­ra­tions con­tin­ue.”

Alexan­der’s Cab­i­net col­league, Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Khadi­jah Ameen, al­so up­loaded a post to so­cial me­dia high­light­ing the struc­ture’s place­ment.

Ameen’s post said, “The mis­sion con­tin­ues at the Ed­die Hart Recre­ation Ground as Mo­bile Po­lice post is in­stalled.”

When the Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the lo­ca­tion, both min­is­ters had al­ready vis­it­ed the site and left but the post was in place with work­ers do­ing sup­ple­men­tary work around it.

The in­stal­la­tion of the post has been a point of con­tention, as the TPRC says they were not con­sult­ed about its con­struc­tion. The cor­po­ra­tion is­sued a no­tice of vi­o­la­tion on Fri­day, with TPRC chair­man Josi­ah Austin stat­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions had al­so re­vealed that the foun­da­tion was laid over Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny un­der­ground pipelines.

How­ev­er, NGC chair­man Ger­ald Ramdeen has stat­ed that the gas lines are not ac­tive and pose no risk.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Austin said he did not wish to is­sue a com­ment be­fore the emer­gency meet­ing with Ude­cott to­day.

The is­sue emerged just days af­ter the Gov­ern­ment an­nounced that 30 po­lice posts, which will be used to fa­cil­i­tate the op­er­a­tional­i­sa­tion of joint army/po­lice units, would be es­tab­lished across the coun­try over the next four months.

The con­struc­tion of the po­lice posts around the coun­try has al­so start­ed an­oth­er row be­tween the Gov­ern­ment and the Op­po­si­tion. On Fri­day, Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les raised ques­tions con­cern­ing the award of con­tracts for the con­struc­tion of the 30 po­lice posts around the coun­try, with a fur­ther in­quiry as to whether prop­er process was fol­lowed.

How­ev­er, Gov­ern­ment MP Bar­ry Padarath re­spond­ed to this state­ment on so­cial me­dia, say­ing, “True to form, the Op­po­si­tion is on­ly in­ter­est­ed in con­tracts and con­trac­tors. The PNM was silent for five years when al­le­ga­tions that the pro­ceeds of state con­tracts were be­ing used to fi­nance Bal­isi­er House. In­stead of fo­cus­ing on the val­ue that the mo­bile units would bring in the fight against crime, the Op­po­si­tion is ped­dling pro­pa­gan­da and mis­in­for­ma­tion.”