Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

Head of the Fire Of­fi­cers As­so­ci­a­tion (FOA) Leo Ramkissoon says while fire­fight­ers have no prob­lem risk­ing their lives for the safe­ty of the pub­lic, they should not be asked to do so with de­fec­tive ve­hi­cles.

Ramkissoon made the re­marks in ref­er­ence to an in­ter­nal mem­o­ran­dum cir­cu­lat­ed by the Fire Ser­vice, re­mind­ing fire of­fi­cers of their du­ties and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties.

The mem­o­ran­dum was is­sued in re­la­tion to re­quests by some fire of­fi­cers to stop dri­ving cer­tain ve­hi­cles.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Ramkissoon said of­fi­cers were con­cerned over the num­ber of ve­hi­cles be­long­ing to the Fire Ser­vice in need of ur­gent re­pairs.

He said of­fi­cers should not have to take chances with their per­son­al safe­ty in re­la­tion to cer­tain ve­hi­cles.

Ramkissoon said a fresh batch of ve­hi­cles was nec­es­sary to en­sure op­ti­mal re­sponse.

He al­so said that while of­fi­cers had a strong sense of com­mit­ment to du­ty, they would be with­in their rights to re­ject or­ders to trav­el in un­safe ve­hi­cles.

He said, “Most of our of­fi­cers, our dri­vers who op­er­ate the ve­hi­cles are do­ing so re­al­ly in cir­cum­stances where they can re­sist. They can refuse in cer­tain cir­cum­stances to op­er­ate the ve­hi­cles and they con­tin­ue to op­er­ate be­cause of their du­ty to the pub­lic.

“As far as the law is con­cerned, the of­fi­cers have every right in cir­cum­stances where a truck is not law­ful­ly al­lowed to be on the road.”

Ramkissoon said, on av­er­age, fire of­fi­cers re­ceived at least 6,000 calls an­nu­al­ly, not­ing that with such a high de­mand ve­hi­cles would even­tu­al­ly show signs of wear and tear.

He sug­gest­ed that a fresh batch of ve­hi­cles would ease the strain on the cur­rent fleet.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, Chief Fire Of­fi­cer Arnold Bris­to said while some ve­hi­cles were in need of re­pair, oth­ers passed in­spec­tion, not­ing that the Fire Ser­vice, the brigade en­gi­neer, was com­mit­ted to bring­ing all ve­hi­cles up to stan­dard. He said, “No­body in the Fire Ser­vice will give any­body any de­fec­tive ve­hi­cle to dri­ve.

“All ve­hi­cles are re­quired to be in­spect­ed and the Fire Ser­vice and the En­gi­neer­ing De­part­ment have been work­ing to­wards hav­ing all the ve­hi­cles in­spect­ed.”

Bris­to said the Fire Ser­vice was con­tin­u­ing the project of work­ing on ve­hi­cles as some were await­ing parts.