Udecott steps into Eddie Hart police-army post dispute

Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

Se­nior Re­porter

eliz­a­beth.gon­za­[email protected]

Af­ter two days of con­fronta­tion over the Ed­die Hart mo­bile po­lice post, the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (Ude­cott) has stepped in­to the dis­pute, iden­ti­fy­ing it­self as project man­ag­er and agree­ing to meet with of­fi­cials of the Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (TPRC) on Mon­day.

TPRC chair­man Josi­ah Austin told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day that Ude­cott con­tact­ed the cor­po­ra­tion on Fri­day night to re­quest the meet­ing.

The de­vel­op­ment comes as ques­tions re­main over whether work on the Ed­die Hart project has been com­plet­ed. While Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Khadi­jah Ameen said con­struc­tion was com­plet­ed on Fri­day, the mo­bile po­lice unit had not been placed on the new­ly built foun­da­tion when Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the grounds yes­ter­day morn­ing.

No work­ers were on site and the con­crete plat­form ap­peared com­plete.

Austin said the ab­sence of the pre­fab­ri­cat­ed po­lice unit sug­gest­ed the over­all project had stalled.

At Grand Bazaar, mean­while, work on an­oth­er mo­bile po­lice post was pro­gress­ing.

Yes­ter­day, Ameen said no fur­ther con­struc­tion was re­quired at Ed­die Hart.

“We stayed un­til the work was com­plet­ed yes­ter­day (Fri­day),” she told Guardian Me­dia by What­sApp.

Asked whether more con­struc­tion was ex­pect­ed, Ameen replied, “No. That’s it. It’s a plat­form. They’re go­ing to put the mo­bile unit on top.”

Gov­ern­ment an­nounced ear­li­er this week that 30 joint po­lice and army posts would be es­tab­lished across the coun­try over the next four months.

The Ed­die Hart site be­came a flash­point on Thurs­day when the TPRC halt­ed the ini­tial works, say­ing it had not been con­sult­ed about what was be­ing con­struct­ed on the grounds.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar sub­se­quent­ly ac­cused the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment of at­tempt­ing to frus­trate Gov­ern­ment’s crime-fight­ing ini­tia­tive.

Work re­sumed on Fri­day while Ameen and Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der were at the site. Austin lat­er ar­rived with a vi­o­la­tion no­tice. Ameen and Alexan­der main­tained that the project was law­ful and would con­tin­ue.

Austin said yes­ter­day that the cor­po­ra­tion had not yet reached the point of tak­ing le­gal ac­tion.

“We have served the no­tice of vi­o­la­tion and we have five days to re­spond. So, we’ll see what hap­pens where that is con­cerned,” he said.

He main­tained that the cor­po­ra­tion sup­ports hav­ing a po­lice post at Ed­die Hart.

“We would like to see this come to full fruition and be a suc­cess­ful thing be­cause it’s ben­e­fi­cial to every­one, our­selves in­clud­ed. At the end of the day, sim­ple con­sul­ta­tion is what we ask,” Austin said.

The TPRC has al­so raised con­cerns about ex­ist­ing de­vel­op­ment plans for Ed­die Hart, in­clud­ing a 2,500-seat pavil­ion, park­ing and oth­er fa­cil­i­ties.

Austin has al­so claimed the foun­da­tion was con­struct­ed over an NGC gas pipeline. That claim has not been in­de­pen­dent­ly con­firmed.

Ed­die Hart grounds­man Jer­ry Richards, who has man­aged the grounds for 21 years, al­so sup­ports the po­lice post.

“I would like the po­lice post to be right there,” Richards said.

But Richards said he was not con­sult­ed be­fore the work start­ed.

“No, no­body ever told me about it. When I saw the post go­ing to be built, I came to the work­ers and asked them what was go­ing on. So I con­tact­ed the chair­man, and the chair­man told me he didn’t know any­thing about this,” he said.

Alexan­der did not re­spond to calls for com­ment on the mat­ter up to late yes­ter­day.

Mean­while, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced yes­ter­day that con­struc­tion of mo­bile po­lice posts at Tarou­ba and Grand Bazaar was un­der­way.

She post­ed on Face­book yes­ter­day, “As your UNC Gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to take de­ci­sive steps to se­cure our com­mu­ni­ties and bring greater safe­ty to law-abid­ing cit­i­zens, we thank all those who con­tin­ue to sup­port and as­sist in the fight against crime.

“While all trends show that crime con­tin­ues to de­cline, we must keep the pres­sure on crim­i­nal el­e­ments and strength­en the pres­ence of law en­force­ment in our com­mu­ni­ties.”

She said the posts were part of Gov­ern­ment’s ef­forts to strength­en the pres­ence of law en­force­ment in com­mu­ni­ties and main­tain pres­sure on crim­i­nal el­e­ments.

She added, “With these new mo­bile po­lice posts, we can look for­ward to an in­creased lev­el of safe­ty across Trinidad and To­ba­go. Thank you once again to the brave men and women of our law en­force­ment agen­cies who con­tin­ue to work tire­less­ly to pro­tect our cit­i­zens and com­mu­ni­ties.”