Casan­dra Thomp­son-Forbes

Fire­fight­ers in Rox­bor­ough have a new place to call home af­ter the new­ly-built Rox­bor­ough Fire Sta­tion was opened yes­ter­day.

In de­liv­er­ing the fea­ture ad­dress, Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Stu­art Young said the fa­cil­i­ty, which was ex­pect­ed to be com­plet­ed in Sep­tem­ber 2020, came in un­der time, on bud­get and free from any form of cor­rup­tion.

“This sta­tion was de­liv­ered for $37 mil­lion. We have come here to­day to open this fire sta­tion, it is not a gim­mick,” Young said.

“The Rox­bor­ough Fire Sta­tion sign is stuck to the top, there are no let­ters falling off and we will op­er­ate from this fire sta­tion when we leave here to­day un­der time and on bud­get, that is what this ad­min­is­tra­tion de­liv­ers. There is no risk what­so­ev­er of any kick­back, there’s no risk of any cor­rup­tion that was so preva­lent un­der the last ad­min­is­tra­tion.”

Young said To­ba­go East had been de­vel­oped sig­nif­i­cant­ly over the last five years, com­pared to the 2010 to 2015 pe­ri­od un­der the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment.

“The com­plete break­down of the re­la­tion­ship be­tween Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment and the THA and the hor­rors that were tak­ing place - un­re­turned calls, un­re­turned cor­re­spon­dence, no mon­ey com­ing from Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment, a com­plete lack of re­spect and cour­tesy at a bare min­i­mum, To­ba­go I’m plead­ing with you, don’t let it go back to those days when we have made this mas­sive amount of progress un­der Dr (Kei­th) Row­ley,” he said.

Minister of National Security Stuart Young, left, bounces elbows with Acting Chief Fire Officer Marlon Smith after unveiling the plaque during the opening of the new Roxborough Fire Station yesterday.

VINDRA GOPAUL-BOODAN

To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Chief Sec­re­tary An­cil Den­nis mean­while said un­der the Row­ley-led Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment ad­min­is­tra­tion, To­ba­go had seen un­prece­dent­ed and ac­cel­er­at­ed de­vel­op­ment

“If we sim­ply look around, we will recog­nise that some­time last year, we com­mis­sioned a new po­lice sta­tion right across the road. It was last year as well that right up the road the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly opened a new Ad­min­is­tra­tive Com­plex here in Rox­bor­ough, not many months ago as well we turned the sod to be­gin con­struc­tion of a new hos­pi­tal here in Rox­bor­ough, that will be com­plet­ed in a few months’ time and there­fore we will once again gath­er here again in Rox­bor­ough to open yet an­oth­er project,” Den­nis said.

Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for To­ba­go East Ayan­na Web­ster-Roy, who is from the vil­lage of Rox­bor­ough, said she was elat­ed with the changes in her home­town. She urged res­i­dents to max­imise on the in­fra­struc­tur­al de­vel­op­ments in the area, adding res­i­dents should po­si­tion them­selves for ad­vance­ment and growth.

“Let us change our mind­set, let us look at our­selves as the pro­duc­ers and the em­ploy­ers, let us be­come more com­mit­ted to pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, let us be­come more will­ing and open to tak­ing risk. Yes, we can in­vest in the com­mu­ni­ty as a Gov­ern­ment and we have seen the in­vest­ment, but it’s up to us the peo­ple of Rox­bor­ough and the peo­ple of To­ba­go East to trans­form this space,” Web­ster-Roy said.

The old Rox­bor­ough Fire Sta­tion, which was lo­cat­ed on the same site, was built in the 1980s but was con­demned by OS­HA in 2014. The new sta­tion was built by the Chi­na Rail­way Com­pa­ny, while the project was man­aged by UDe­CoTT.