For­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj says he nev­er threat­ened lit­i­ga­tion in a let­ter to Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh ask­ing the Gov­ern­ment to look in­to un­suit­able ac­com­mo­da­tions pro­vid­ed to the 68 peo­ple who were quar­an­tined in Ba­lan­dra af­ter re­turn­ing from a Caribbean cruise.

Ad­dress­ing the is­sue hours af­ter Deyals­ingh raised it dur­ing a press con­fer­ence on COVID-19, Ma­haraj said the min­is­ter made ref­er­ence to the let­ter, sent last week, but failed to out­line the con­text in which it was writ­ten.

He ex­plained that rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the quar­an­tined peo­ple called his of­fice on Thurs­day ask­ing for as­sis­tance. He said the quar­an­tined na­tion­als agreed to co­op­er­ate with the pro­to­cols but felt the ac­com­mo­da­tion pro­vid­ed was not in keep­ing with the so­cial dis­tanc­ing guide­lines Gov­ern­ment was pro­mot­ing among cit­i­zens.

Ma­haraj said he was un­able to in­ves­ti­gate the is­sues raised and in the best in­ter­est of the pub­lic felt it nec­es­sary to write to the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, Min­is­ter of Health and the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty.

“Be­cause the min­ster made pub­lic that the let­ter was sent, in­fer­ences were drawn that these peo­ple didn’t want to be quar­an­tined, but I have a du­ty to the pub­lic to state that these peo­ple were not in­ter­est­ed in be­ing re­leased. They want­ed to be quar­an­tined, they con­sent­ed but they were mak­ing a re­quest to the Gov­ern­ment to pro­vide ben­e­fits for them in or­der for gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy to be kept.

“They want­ed to test and they want­ed the ac­com­mo­da­tion to be such that it will pro­mote so­cial dis­tanc­ing and want­ed sani­tis­ers and clean­ing prod­ucts and oth­er mat­ters,” Ma­haraj said.

“I thought it best, hav­ing re­gard to pub­lic health emer­gency in the coun­try, that it was nec­es­sary to write to min­is­ter, not as a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter, not threat­en­ing any­thing, but point­ing out that these were re­quests be­ing made. I could not in­ves­ti­gate the com­plaint be­cause of cir­cum­stances and I want­ed the Gov­ern­ment to in­ves­ti­gate the re­quest so I asked the Min­istry of Health to take ur­gent ac­tion.”

Asked whether he be­lieved the 40 mem­bers of the group who have since test­ed pos­i­tive for COVID-19 might have avoid­ed in­fec­tion if prop­er so­cial dis­tanc­ing had been prac­tised, Ma­haraj said he did not know.

“I do not know whether the fact that they did not take steps for so­cial dis­tanc­ing caused the prob­lem. I felt that since they drew to my at­ten­tion that how they were be­ing ac­com­mo­dat­ed was not in con­for­mi­ty with the Gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy, that I should draw it to the Gov­ern­ment to in­ves­ti­gate and take steps to im­prove the con­di­tions,” he ex­plained.

Asked whether he be­lieved Gov­ern­ment was tak­ing proac­tive mea­sures to curb the spread of COVID -19, Ma­haraj said: “I want to be hon­est and in re­spect of this re­quest, I think that I am hap­py that they re­spond­ed and took ac­tion.

“I think that the Gov­ern­ment is act­ing in ac­cor­dance with what is hap­pen­ing in oth­er coun­tries. You need strong ac­tion. It is a pub­lic emer­gency and it is a war. The im­por­tant thing is so­cial dis­tanc­ing and if that can be car­ried out it will be good in the fight against the virus.”

He al­so rec­om­mend­ed that cer­tain build­ings be iden­ti­fied for quar­an­tine.

“I don’t know about ho­tels but I think the army should get in­volved and the Gov­ern­ment should con­sid­er that the army could pro­vide fa­cil­i­ties and help to pro­vide as­sis­tance with quar­an­tine.

“The Gov­ern­ment can take steps to look at build­ings to see what can be com­mis­sioned and pro­vide these fa­cil­i­ties to the pub­lic. This is a war and Gov­ern­ment is treat­ing it like war, so the Gov­ern­ment should ex­pect the pub­lic co­op­er­a­tion.”