As Gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to lose mil­lions of dol­lars an­nu­al­ly from il­le­gal quar­ry­ing in north-east Trinidad, act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands (COSL) Bhan­matie Seecha­ran says there are seem­ing­ly rogue el­e­ments with­in state agen­cies and pos­si­bly with­in her of­fice who have been alert­ing and “tip­ping off” il­lic­it quar­ry op­er­a­tors to avoid be­ing caught and ar­rest­ed by the po­lice.
"On nu­mer­ous oc­ca­sions, this of­fice re­ceived re­ports of im­me­di­ate on­go­ing il­lic­it ac­tiv­i­ties and be­tween the time it takes to mo­bilise forces and reach the site, no one is found on the ground. There­fore, it is left for one to as­sume that the per­pe­tra­tors are in­deed be­ing tipped off," she said.

The Catholic Arch­dio­cese has can­celled, with im­me­di­ate ef­fect, all mass­es across the coun­try.

The T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion is in­sist­ing that the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion pro­vide the nec­es­sary safe­ty sup­plies to schools. An­to­nia De Fre­itas, the TTUTA pres­i­dent said the union will urge the min­istry to up­hold its re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for en­sur­ing the health and safe­ty of the peo­ple on school com­pounds.

There is no mad rush for toi­let pa­per and oth­er sup­plies in To­ba­go. Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed su­per­mar­kets and spoke with To­bag­o­ni­ans on Sat­ur­day Morn­ing.