Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Hous­ing, Phillip Alexan­der, says the Gov­ern­ment in­tends to in­crease the num­ber of life­guards and ex­pand the beach­es they man across the coun­try.

This comes af­ter sev­er­al re­cent drown­ings.

Over the week­end, Robin Sawh, 33, died while bathing at Grand La­goon, Ma­yaro. In an­oth­er in­ci­dent, Bar­rack­pore res­i­dent Nigel Du­doon drowned while swim­ming at Colum­bus Bay, Ce­dros. These came days af­ter An­drew Clarke, 35, drowned while at Pen­zante Bay, Ba­lan­dra, last Thurs­day.

So far, the po­lice and rel­a­tives of the vic­tims have called for beach­go­ers to be aware of the tides and cur­rents while at sea.

Yes­ter­day, Mara­cas life­guard pa­trol Cap­tain Carl Her­nan­dez said life­guards were con­cerned about the short­age of staff to look out for beach­go­ers. Her­nan­dez said the re­cent drown­ings at beach­es in East Trinidad high­light­ed the need for more life­guards.

But in a tele­phone in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Alexan­der, who vis­it­ed Mara­cas Bay last week along­side De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge and Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Tourism Dr Neil Go­sine, said while he could not speak for the oth­er min­is­ters, he was aware of the con­cerns be­ing raised.

Alexan­der, when asked about life­guards to ad­e­quate­ly man the 10 pub­lic beach­es, said it was long over­due.

“We have too many drown­ing vic­tims in Ma­yaro and To­co, and Blan­chisseuses. We need to bring every­thing un­der the tourism um­brel­la. And I know, I’m not speak­ing for them, I know that Min­is­ter of Trade, In­vest­ment and Tourism Satyaka­ma Ma­haraj and his par­lia­men­tary sec­re­tary are very pre­oc­cu­pied with bring­ing all of this up to the lev­el the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter wants it at.”

Alexan­der said while he could not di­vulge much, he knew there was a holis­tic plan that would ex­pand from the beach­es to in­clude the rivers.

Her­nan­dez said there are 98 life­guards now man­ning 10 beach­es: Mara­cas Beach, Tyri­co, Las Cuevas, Los Iros, Quinam, Ves­signy, Saly­bia, To­co, Ma­yaro, and Man­zanil­la. The last in­take, he said, was in 2013, and the ide­al num­ber of life­guards should be 200.

He called for tow­ers at Mara­cas to be con­struct­ed so life­guards could have a bet­ter van­tage point, as well as at Tyri­co Bay. Her­nan­dez ad­vised beach­go­ers to obey the flags placed on the beach­es and heed the warn­ings of life­guards.

“Every­body feels they could swim, they’re not pay­ing at­ten­tion to the flags. They’re not even lis­ten­ing to the life­guard be­cause of how calm the wa­ter looks. Some of them can’t even dog­gy pad­dle, but they go­ing out. Right now, the amount of res­cues we’re mak­ing in Mara­cas in calm seas, you will sur­prised. My ad­vice to the pub­lic again, lis­ten to the life­guards!”

Her­nan­dez said he took is­sue with the De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge, the line min­is­ter with re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for life­guards, vis­it­ing the beach last week and not tak­ing the time to speak with them. He said this was re­gard­ed as an in­sult. How­ev­er, Min­is­ter Alexan­der apol­o­gised on be­half of his col­league and said Sturge was more than will­ing to meet with life­guards.

Re­cent drown­ings:

* Robin Sawh, Grand La­goon, Ma­yaro

* Nigel Du­doon, Colum­bus Bay, Ce­dros

* An­drew Clarke, Pen­zante Bay, Ba­lan­dra

* Christo­pher Chin, Mara­cas Beach

* Sameer Rag­bir, 14, Ma­yaro

* Ja­keem Phillip, 16, and his cousin Dil­lon Clark, 25, Sans Souci Beach