SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

A new state -of -the -art CCTV ser­vice is on the hori­zon for the po­lice to fight crime.

The rev­e­la­tion was made yes­ter­day by Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives in re­sponse to an ur­gent ques­tion posed by Op­po­si­tion MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal as to whether a new con­tract for the pro­vi­sion of CCTV cam­eras and as­so­ci­at­ed ser­vices has been im­ple­ment­ed for crime-fight­ing.

Young said he was not aware of the im­ple­men­ta­tion of a new CCTV con­tract but a let­ter of award was de­liv­ered to the cho­sen provider for a new CCTV ser­vice.

"The con­tract is be­ing ne­go­ti­at­ed and to be signed I am told this week."

The min­is­ter could not say what per­cent­age of CCTV cam­eras have not been func­tion­ing.

"But what I can tell the pop­u­la­tion is the con­tract we have ne­go­ti­at­ed and en­tered in­to re­sult­ed in an an­nu­al sav­ings of over $310 mil­lion for the tax­pay­ers of T&T for bet­ter tech­nol­o­gy to be pro­vid­ed."

Mooni­lal said over 40 per cent of the CCTV cam­eras were not in work­ing or­der and "can­not be used by the po­lice as a tool in crime-fight­ing. Notwith­stand­ing the great sav­ings, you are talk­ing about."

Young said it has be­come to modus operan­di for Mooni­lal to pro­vide mis­in­for­ma­tion to the pub­lic.

Op­po­si­tion MP Dr Tim Gopeesingh al­so asked Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley why there has been no sig­nif­i­cant im­prove­ment or mod­erni­sa­tion of the T&T's Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre.

The PM said the Gov­ern­ment re­cent­ly signed a $100 mil­lion dol­lar grant arrange­ment with the Gov­ern­ment of Chi­na for the es­tab­lish­ment of this cen­tre.

"The build­ing and out­fit­ting de­signs and arrange­ments are in their fi­nal stages in Chi­na and very soon this would be a project to the peo­ple of T&T and Chi­na."