rishard.khan@guardian.co.tt
Agricultural Society of Trinidad and Tobago president Darryl Rampersad is calling for the Praedial Larceny Squad to be disbanded until it can be operationalised efficiently.
His call comes after the squad was unable to respond to a Carlsen Field farmer’s call for help after his livestock, valued at $50,000, was stolen, although it has an office just metres from the man’s farm.
The dairy farmer, Donny Roger, told Guardian Media he discovered his seven animals missing over the last few days. However, he claimed he discovered them on a nearby farm yesterday, after which he reported it to the nearby Praedial Larceny Squad station. However, he said he was told the officers would be unable to respond due to a lack of staff and vehicles.
“The reality of when someone steals a cow, you are stealing generations of revenue to come. Remember, from a cow you going to get offsprings, you going to get more offspring. Those offsprings going to give more offsprings,” he said.
Furthermore, he said a livestock farmer also loses all the work put in to breed an animal with the desired genetic traits.
“When you lose that, you lose five to 10 years of resources being invested into animals,” Roger said.
Agriculture Society president Rampersad meanwhile told Guardian Media that praedial larceny is a persisting issue for farmers but this incident was “the straw that break the camel’s back.”
“You have an incident taking place a few meters away from a Praedial Larceny station and they stating that they can’t do anything about it. So what is to say in other areas where we don’t have a Praedial Larceny Station?” he said.
“There is nothing being done. I have constant complaints from the farming community as it pertains to praedial larceny and if this unit cannot get it right, shut it down. Don’t waste taxpayers’ money on individuals who not performing. Get rid of that.”
He said as the chair of the Voluntary Advisory Committee to the Ministry of Agriculture, he has also been in dialogue with the authorities. However, he said he could no longer keep silent on the matter.
“(It) wasting time. No way could 37 officers and four vehicles service an entire country. That’s just a waste of taxpayers’ money out there,” he said.
Guardian Media was unable to get a comment from Minister of Agriculture, Land and Fisheries, Kazim Hosein, as he did not respond to calls yesterday. However, responding to a question in the Senate on January 25, Hosein said the unit has been making adjustments “to realign with the current needs, based on reports received.”
“This is to facilitate an adequate response utilising the officers we have in the short term. The Ministry is seeking to engage more officers in the medium term, through recruitment. While the Ministry awaits the full complement of staff for the squad, the officers have also established communication lines with the various farmers’ groups throughout the country. So they are aware of the affected farmers or areas where praedial larceny is taking place. In this way, we can respond utilizing the support system previously mentioned with the TTPS, the municipal police and the EMBD police,” he said.
He added that his ministry is working with the Ministry of Public Administration to hire 40 additional officers within the coming months. He said they were also hoping to complete the process of acquiring three additional vehicles for the officers by this month.