SASCHA WIL­SON

Con­cerns about the safe­ty of vis­i­tors and work­ers at the San Fer­nan­do Hill have come to the fore­front once again af­ter a rob­bery and theft at the nat­ur­al land­mark.

About a year ago, sim­i­lar con­cerns were ex­pressed when a gun­man robbed em­ploy­ees at the main of­fice sit­u­at­ed on top of the hill and this was just one of sev­er­al rob­beries in a short space of time.

Neil Bax­ter, a shop stew­ard with the Na­tion­al Union of Gov­ern­ment and Fed­er­at­ed Work­ers (NUGFW), who has been work­ing as a handy­man on the hill for the past 18 years, had made a call then for prop­er se­cu­ri­ty.

What they got was an elec­tron­ic door and in­creased po­lice pa­trols.

Bax­ter said on Thurs­day a man was ac­cost­ed and robbed of his car keys and cell­phone by two men in the play park.

He did not know the de­tails since the vis­i­tor did not make an of­fi­cial re­port at the of­fice. A few days ear­li­er on Sun­day night ban­dits broke in­to the stock room where they stole three blow­ers and three wack­ers.

The po­lice caught one of the men and re­cov­ered all the equip­ment, ex­cept for one of the blow­ers. He claimed the Forestry Di­vi­sion and to an ex­tent, the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture were not prop­er­ly se­cur­ing the work­ers or the prop­er­ty or main­tain­ing and re­pair­ing the prop­er­ty and its struc­tures.

Cur­rent­ly, there are on­ly three se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers who are sta­tioned at the en­trance of the hill, the main build­ing and the play park.

How­ev­er, they have no weapon, not even a ba­ton, no hand­held trans­ceiv­er and no ve­hi­cle to pa­trol the hill.

The se­cu­ri­ty booth is in a de­plorable con­di­tion, said Bax­ter, who added, “The se­cu­ri­ty staff is to­tal­ly de­mor­alised right now. They have not got­ten paid a year now.”

Four years ago when there ex­ist­ed an over­sight com­mit­tee which was in charge of up­grad­ing and main­tain­ing the hill, he said things were run­ning smooth­ly.

“Each time a client rent­ed the build­ing $3,000 would go to­wards the main­te­nance of the hill. But, that is not hap­pen­ing now,” he said.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, he said they can­not prop­er­ly main­tain the bush­es and trees be­cause the equip­ment they have now are not work­ing.

He said, “We need wack­ers, we need trim­mers, boots, safe­ty shades.”

He said right now there are two clean­ers, six handy­men, a ranger and three of­fice staff. He said years gone by there were six rangers on the hill.

Some of the prob­lems at the main build­ing in­clud­ed a non-func­tion­ing air-con­di­tion­ing unit and mal­func­tion­ing com­put­ers due to elec­tri­cal prob­lems.

“The win­dows can’t open and the work­ers are afraid to leave the door open be­cause a ban­dit could run in, so they in a dilem­ma,” he said.

Al­so, he said there is no ex­it door which is against health and safe­ty reg­u­la­tions.

They al­so have no drink­ing wa­ter as the wa­ter dis­penser has stopped work­ing and the tank wa­ter is not safe to drink. “The treat­ment we get­ting from the Forestry Di­vi­sion and to an ex­tent the Min­istry is very, very wrong,” he said.

While every week the hill at­tracts about 1,000 vis­i­tors, Bax­ter said the num­ber of rental book­ings have de­clined due to se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns.

He com­plained they have not had any wage ne­go­ti­a­tions in six to sev­en years and are still work­ing for the same salary.

“We work­ing for the same salary all these years we have bills to pay, we have to main­tain over fam­i­lies, pay lines and it is very dif­fi­cult. The staff is de­mor­alised. We love where we work, some peo­ple say the hill has heal­ing pow­ers,” he said.

Bax­ter al­so called on man­age­ment to meet with the union and ad­dress this is­sue, as well as their terms and con­di­tions of work, par­tic­u­lar­ly their hours of work.

When con­tact­ed Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Clarence Ramb­harat re­ferred queries to the Con­ser­va­tor of Forests Den­ny Dipchands­ingh but calls and mes­sages to his cell­phone went unan­swered.