Jensen La Vende

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds says the for­ma­tion of a three-mem­ber com­mit­tee to probe the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the T&T Fire Ser­vice’s re­sponse to the fire at the home of de­ceased D’Abadie/O’Meara MP Lisa Mor­ris-Ju­lian, is not due to her po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tion.

At a me­dia con­fer­ence at the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day, Hinds said the com­mit­tee will be chaired by for­mer chief fire of­fi­cer Roo­sevelt Bruce and in­cludes chair­man of the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Au­thor­i­ty Curt Cadet and state at­tor­ney Ashti Ma­habir.

He said the com­mit­tee, which has been giv­en two weeks to do its work, was formed to ad­dress pub­lic dis­qui­et over the role or lack there­of in the state agency’s re­sponse to the fire, which led to the deaths of Mor­ris-Ju­lian, her daugh­ter Xi­anne, 25 and six-year-old son Jisane.

The trio died as the fire gut­ted their Far­fan Street, Ari­ma home on Mon­day.

Af­ter the deaths, the Fire Ser­vice and Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les en­gaged in a pub­lic spat over the fire­fight­ers’ re­sponse and whether there was an ad­e­quate wa­ter sup­ply to bat­tle the fire. The TTFS not­ed that the of­fi­cers at the Ari­ma sta­tion, which is less than a block away, were re­spond­ing to an­oth­er fire and fire­fight­ers from the Tu­na­puna sta­tion had to be sum­moned to as­sist them. An ar­gu­ment al­so de­vel­oped over a lack of prop­er re­sources.

In the in­ter­im, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, as head of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, or­dered Hinds to set up a com­mit­tee to probe the in­ci­dent.

Asked if the com­mit­tee was formed be­cause of Mor­ris-Ju­lian’s po­si­tion, Hinds said no. He said there was pub­lic dis­qui­et over the deaths and that need­ed to be ad­dressed.

“We be­lieve that the pub­lic is en­ti­tled to know the facts, par­tic­u­lar­ly since this in­volves a very pub­lic mat­ter and a pub­lic per­son. So, I will dis­miss the fact that this is pure­ly be­cause it’s one mem­ber of Par­lia­ment, but re­al­ly to ad­dress pub­lic con­cerns and de­sire and to get ac­cu­rate an­swers. So, those of us who have to pro­nounce up­on it, who have to deal with it and oth­ers who would like to pro­nounce up­on it, for one rea­son, or the oth­er would do so, from a po­si­tion of facts, rather than emo­tion­al­ism, or just mere con­jec­ture.”

The com­mit­tee is man­dat­ed to ex­plore the facts and cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the re­sponse of the Fire Ser­vice; the re­sources at the Tu­na­puna and Ari­ma Fire Sta­tions; re­view the log­books of the fire sta­tions; re­view the sta­tus of the fire when the Fire Ser­vice ar­rived; and whether there was a suf­fi­cient sup­ply of wa­ter on ar­rival, among is­sues.

At the end of the two weeks, Hinds said the find­ings of the re­port will be made pub­lic af­ter the Gov­ern­ment re­views the re­port and rec­om­men­da­tions.

Hinds said the mem­bers will do the work pro-bono and he does not ex­pect there will be any non-com­pli­ance from pub­lic of­fi­cials in pro­vid­ing in­for­ma­tion, de­spite the com­mit­tee hav­ing no le­gal au­thor­i­ty to com­pel any­one to give in­for­ma­tion.

Hinds said Ma­habir was added to the com­mit­tee in the event any le­gal is­sues arose.

Speak­ing with the me­dia af­ter­wards, Bruce said, “I am hap­py now to serve and to do this in­ves­ti­ga­tion, which is spe­cif­ic to this in­ci­dent on De­cem­ber 16.”

Asked why he chose to ac­cept the po­si­tion, Bruce said when­ev­er called to serve his coun­try, he will do so in any ca­pac­i­ty he feels qual­i­fied to.

On Wednes­day, Cab­i­net an­nounced it would fa­cil­i­tate a state-as­sist­ed fu­ner­al for Mor­ris-Ju­lian and her two chil­dren. A date for the fu­ner­al is yet to be de­ter­mined.