La Brea MP condemns theft of cables from Pt D’or Recreation Ground

Sascha Wil­son

La Brea MP Clyde El­der has con­demned the theft of elec­tri­cal ca­bles from the Pt D’or Recre­ation Ground, de­scrib­ing it as a blow to com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment.

The ca­bles were dis­cov­ered miss­ing yes­ter­day. T&TEC was in­formed by a con­trac­tor that six pieces of ca­ble, each 30 feet long and val­ued at $3,500, had been placed un­der­ground on Tues­day be­fore work­ers fin­ished at 3.45 pm. The site is in an open area with un­re­strict­ed pub­lic ac­cess. When the con­trac­tor re­turned at 7 am, the ca­bles were gone.

In a Face­book post, El­der said he had com­mit­ted to re­fur­bish­ing the light­ing at the recre­ation ground be­fore or im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter Car­ni­val.

“The in­stal­la­tion crews un­earthed the ar­moured ca­bles to ex­am­ine their in­tegri­ty for reuse in­to the project. To my dis­may and great dis­ap­point­ment the ca­bles were stolen overnight on the 10.02.26,” he said.

El­der de­scribed the in­ci­dent as a “di­rect at­tack on the de­vel­op­ment of La Brea” and called on res­i­dents to con­demn the act.

“I con­demn this crim­i­nal act in the strongest pos­si­ble way, and I call on every right think­ing and law-abid­ing con­stituent to do the same. Steal­ing from a com­mu­ni­ty whether it is pub­lic in­fra­struc­ture, a lo­cal busi­ness, or a shared re­source cre­ates pro­found, long-last­ing, and of­ten ir­re­versible neg­a­tive con­se­quences,” he said.

“Theft of Pub­lic Re­sources, such as Cop­per Ca­ble, Park Equip­ment, or Build­ing Ma­te­ri­als, di­rect­ly re­duces the gov­ern­ment's abil­i­ty to de­liv­er ser­vices. Every dol­lar lost to theft is a dol­lar not in­vest­ed in de­vel­op­ment.”

El­der said he is con­fi­dent the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice will bring those re­spon­si­ble to jus­tice.