Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds has as­sured that both the Car­rera Is­land Con­vict Prison and the Re­mand Prison in Gold­en Grove are suit­able for oc­cu­pa­tion. How­ev­er, he said some as­pects of the pris­ons, which have been iden­ti­fied for re­pair and re­fur­bish­ment are be­ing ad­dressed prompt­ly.

Hinds gave the in­for­ma­tion in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, in re­sponse to Op­po­si­tion MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal’s query. This fol­lowed con­cerns by the Prison Of­fi­cers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (POA) on the suit­abil­i­ty of both fa­cil­i­ties as des­ig­nat­ed de­ten­tion cen­tres in the Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions. Mooni­lal asked what ur­gent works had been un­der­tak­en to re­pair/re­fur­bish the cen­tres.

Hinds, who said he’d tak­en guid­ance from the Prison Ser­vice ad­min­is­tra­tion, added, “I’ve been in­formed that the two fa­cil­i­ties are suit­able for oc­cu­pa­tion and are oc­cu­pied.

“But of course re­pairs and re­fur­bish­ment are al­ways an on­go­ing process and there are some items that have been iden­ti­fied for re­pair and re­fur­bish­ment and they’re be­ing ad­dressed prompt­ly.”

How­ev­er, Hinds said he had not been ad­vised by the Prison Ser­vice on is­sues at the Gold­en Grove fa­cil­i­ty - like the lack of alarm, leak­ing roof, flood­ing and mould in some ar­eas- which Mooni­lal said the POA wrote Hinds and the Prime Min­is­ter about and hoped would be ad­dressed.

Hinds al­so said there was no pol­i­cy be­tween the Po­lice Ser­vice and the Na­tion­al Main­te­nance Train­ing and Se­cu­ri­ty Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (MTS) to as­sist in the fight against crime.

$20M Shore of Peace land­slip re­pair

Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Faris Al-Rawi al­so de­tailed moves to re­pair the ex­ten­sive land­slip at the Shore of Peace cre­ma­tion site with a $20 mil­lion loan, af­ter he ac­cused the Siparia Re­gion­al Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion of fail­ing to con­sis­tent­ly ex­e­cute its work at that site. Al-Rawi said the min­istry has been step­ping in to en­sure that it con­tin­ues to work.

Al-Rawi was re­spond­ing to Fyz­abad MP Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe’s query on when re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion works will be­gin on the land­slip. Al-Rawi said the min­istry was in­formed of the land­slip by the cor­po­ra­tion in April 2024.

“In May 2024, the min­istry’s En­gi­neer­ing Unit as­sessed the site lo­ca­tion to de­ter­mine the scope of works and cost of the restora­tive works re­quired. Pre­lim­i­nary as­sess­ment con­firmed the land­slip was ex­ten­sive with re­pair works es­ti­mat­ed to cost ap­prox­i­mate­ly $26 mil­lion,” he said.

“Due to the es­ti­mat­ed cost to un­der­take the restora­tive works and the fact that the Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion doesn’t have the fund­ing in fis­cal 2025 to im­ple­ment this, the min­istry re­ferred the project to the Rur­al De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny of TT Lim­it­ed (RDC). In No­vem­ber 2024, the RDC sub­mit­ted its es­ti­mate for the land­slip re­pair works af­ter the project was thor­ough­ly in­ves­ti­gat­ed, scoped and cost­ed.”

Al-Rawi said the RDC’s es­ti­mate for the project was $20.5 mil­lion and af­ter re­view by the min­istry, the RDC was giv­en ap­proval to in­vite ten­ders for the project in De­cem­ber 2024.

He added, “Up­on eval­u­a­tion of ten­ders, the min­istry will ap­proach the Fi­nance Min­istry for loan fi­nanc­ing for this project since it is not catered for in the 2025 Es­ti­mates of Ex­pen­di­ture. Bar­ring un­fore­seen cir­cum­stances, it’s ex­pect­ed con­struc­tion works can com­mence in 2025.”

On a time­frame for start, con­sid­er­ing the im­pend­ing col­lapse of a struc­ture at the site and us­age of the area, Al-Rawi said, “The Min­istry has had its eye on the Shore of Peace for quite some time. At the fu­ner­al cre­ma­tion of the late Bas­deo Pan­day the Siparia Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion had not done any work to up­date the site. The min­istry went in and did all of those works en­sur­ing it main­tained its op­er­a­tional po­si­tion.

“We’ve been as­sist­ing and pick­ing up the bur­den where the Bor­ough failed to. With that in mind, we scoped, cost­ed and pre­pared and there are cau­tion tapes and oth­er as­pects (at the site).

“The ten­ders have come back, we’ve al­ready ap­proached the Fi­nance Min­istry on fund­ing for the RDC- that’s al­ready been tak­en to the Cab­i­net and we’ll get to the works with im­me­di­a­cy.”

Road with ‘1,000 pot­holes’

Cou­va South MP Rudy In­dars­ingh pressed Works Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan on when re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion work will start on a stretch of road which he claimed has “1,000 pot­holes” - Cal­cut­ta No 1 Road from the Cal­cut­ta Tun­nel to Kur­ban Junc­tion.

Sinanan said, “Drainage, con­crete and road works at Cal­cut­ta No 1 from the Tun­nel at Freeport to Cal­cut­ta No 2 Junc­tion have been ap­proved for im­ple­men­ta­tion un­der the PURE Pro­gramme of Works for fis­cal 2025.

“In­vi­ta­tions to ten­der for the project are ex­pect­ed to go out by the end of Feb­ru­ary 2025. In the in­ter­im, in-house patch­ing ac­tiv­i­ties have been pro­grammed to pro­vide some re­lief to com­muters with­in the area.”