RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Farm­ers say they are hard hit by in­creased pre­di­al lar­ce­ny, es­pe­cial­ly in La Sa­vanne, Cun­jal, Sec­ond Co­r­i­al and Gas­par­il­lo ar­eas.

And with the Prae­di­al Lar­ce­ny Squad at a stand­still, the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice is re­as­sur­ing farm­ers that they will try their best to re­spond to dis­tress calls.

Speak­ing to CNC3 News, TTPS Pub­lic In­for­ma­tion of­fi­cer Sheri­don Hill said they have been re­ceiv­ing calls of pre­di­al lar­ce­ny from farm­ers. He said: "Once we get a re­port from the pub­lic, we are man­dat­ed to re­spond. Once crimes are re­port­ed to us, we will take ac­tion, in­ves­ti­gate and pros­e­cute."

Asked whether the clo­sure of the Pre­di­al Lar­ce­ny Unit was plac­ing an ad­di­tion­al bur­den on the TTPS, Hill said, " I don't want to say it's an ad­di­tion­al bur­den. It's an ad­di­tion­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and yes we will re­spond."

He added, " Our func­tion is to in­ves­ti­gate all crimes and per­se­cute peo­ple re­gard­less of the ex­is­tence of oth­er polic­ing agen­cies with­in Trinidad and To­ba­go."

He ad­mit­ted that get­ting ac­cess to the agri­cul­tur­al ac­cess roads may be dif­fi­cult.

"At times, we may face chal­lenges but we re­spond to all crimes com­mit­ted. If we have an is­sue with mo­bil­i­ty we call on stake­hold­ers to as­sist. I want farm­ers to know that the TTPS is here to as­sist you and we will work with you. If there is a need, call on us and we will re­spond" he added.

But farm­ers at Sec­ond Co­r­i­al in Iere Vil­lage say they con­tin­ue to be hard hit by theft. Ram­sumair Hanu­man called on Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Kaz­im Ho­sein to deal with the is­sues of lar­ce­ny im­me­di­ate­ly and to give the Unit every avail­able re­source.

MP for Moru­ga, Michelle Ben­jamin said 50 per cent of the peo­ple in her con­stituen­cy were in­volved in farm­ing and prae­di­al lar­ce­ny has been a big prob­lem since the Unit went down.

She said farm­ers from La Sa­vanne, Table­land Pineap­ple pro­duc­ers, Cun­jal Food Crop farm­ers as well as farm­ers from Moru­ga have all been hard hit by lar­ce­ny. How­ev­er, she said when farm­ers re­port lar­ce­ny to the po­lice, there is lit­tle re­sponse.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, Min­is­ter Ho­sein con­firmed he has been meet­ing with stake­hold­ers to iron out is­sues. 

"To­day I met with the ex­ec­u­tive of the Min­istry and mem­bers of the Prae­di­al Lar­ce­ny Unit to ad­dress con­cerns that con­tin­ue to arise. Dis­cus­sions will con­tin­ue to re­solve is­sues," he added.

Ho­sein said: "We are all here to work to­geth­er as a team, the farm­ers, po­lice and Min­istry. There is a so­lu­tion to the is­sues and we will find it through these dis­cus­sions," he added.

The of­fi­cers from the Unit have re­vealed they are work­ing on short term con­tracts since 2016 and have not been able to pro­ceed on sick, ca­su­al or va­ca­tion leave. 

Apart from be­ing tired and over­worked, the of­fi­cers raised con­cerns about the dis­par­i­ty in salaries for of­fi­cers of the same rank, the dis­par­i­ty in work­ing hours, no ra­dio com­mu­ni­ca­tion, lack of prop­er firearms, lack of prop­er work­ing ve­hi­cles and no emer­gency ve­hi­cles.

Of­fi­cers have al­so is­sued a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter to the Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary, say­ing she il­le­gal­ly pro­mot­ed four of­fi­cers to a high­er rank, sole­ly on the ad­vice of the Squad's Su­per­in­ten­dent, Murchi­son Alex­is. The of­fi­cers say this is a clear vi­o­la­tion of the Spe­cial Re­serve Po­lice Act as the Act states that on­ly the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice has the pow­er to make such ap­point­ments. 

Of­fi­cers say they have al­so lost con­fi­dence in se­nior of­fi­cers who "con­tin­ue to favour some of­fi­cers and ver­bal­ly abuse and trans­fer oth­ers ma­li­cious­ly," the source said.

Mem­bers of the pub­lic wish­ing to make re­ports of prae­di­al lar­ce­ny are ad­vised to di­rect their re­ports to the near­est po­lice sta­tion or call the po­lice emer­gency hot­line at 999.