Ke­jan Haynes

Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Fitzger­ald Hinds says he has "no out­stand­ing and mas­sive re­quests" from the Trinidad and To­ba­go Fire Ser­vice for equip­ment or ve­hi­cles. Hinds was speak­ing to re­porters at the launch of Fire Aware­ness Week on the Bri­an Lara Prom­e­nade yes­ter­day. Hinds was asked to re­spond, in front of the Act­ing Chief Fire Of­fi­cer, to per­sis­tent com­plaints from the Fire Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion that they lack the nec­es­sary equip­ment to do their jobs ef­fec­tive­ly.

The as­so­ci­a­tion of­ten com­plains of a lack of per­son­al pro­tec­tive equip­ment and many sta­tions go with­out fire ten­ders for ex­tend­ed pe­ri­ods of time.

Hinds said there will al­ways be a call or a need for more re­sources but the gov­ern­ment is con­strained by "rev­enue, and by ex­pen­di­ture pat­terns.”

He said he takes re­quests for equip­ment and for train­ing from the fire ser­vice, par­tic­u­lar­ly se­ri­ous­ly and treats them with ur­gency.

Hinds said, “Re­cent­ly, (April 2022) we en­gaged in re­pair­ing some of the breath­ing ap­pa­ra­tus kits that re­quired re­pairs. And re­cent­ly the cab­i­net agreed. And we are in the process of procur­ing some brand spank­ing new ones to en­sure that our men and women out there fight­ing fires and oth­er emer­gen­cies on our be­half would be well tooled, and well equipped in or­der to do the busi­ness.”

He al­so said gov­ern­ment re­paired hy­draulic lifts on some of the ten­ders and promised new, cus­tom ve­hi­cles have been or­dered.

“There is, on or­der now re­quests and ac­tu­al­ly mon­ey paid in ad­vance, and they are now be­ing man­u­fac­tured, some spe­cial­ly built ve­hi­cles, fire ten­ders for spe­cif­ic pur­pos­es,” He said.

Gov­ern­ment al­lo­cat­ed $3.25 mil­lion in the 2023 Bud­get for main­te­nance and re­pair of ve­hi­cles and equip­ment for the Fire Ser­vice.

Act­ing Chief Fire Of­fi­cer Andy Hutchin­son en­dorsed the min­is­ter’s state­ments say­ing gov­ern­ment did, in fact, pro­vide the nec­es­sary fi­nanc­ing to pur­chase equip­ment. He said of­fi­cers are work­ing with the Min­is­ter and the Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary of the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty.

“Hav­ing said that, we are com­mit­ted to giv­ing this coun­try the best ser­vice that we can with what we have,” he said. "Our of­fi­cers are high­ly trained and they work ef­fec­tive­ly and ef­fi­cient­ly at all times. “

MP for Ma­yaro Rush­ton Paray crit­i­cised Hinds last week say­ing he has re­fused to com­mit to pro­vid­ing a fire ten­der at Rio Claro.

“The Rio Claro Fire Sta­tion has been with­out a ten­der for al­most a year, and I have made re­peat­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tions for the pro­vi­sion of this crit­i­cal ap­pli­ance,” Paray said in a re­lease. “The Min­is­ter’s re­fusal has tak­en place de­spite the de­struc­tion of two homes and the dam­age to a busi­ness place in re­cent fires. “

Hinds said the case has al­ways been that if there was a short­age, the fire ser­vice al­lo­cates re­sources as nec­es­sary.

“I in­di­cat­ed to the Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment that you have, for ex­am­ple, in that East­ern area, you have Grande you have Ma­yaro, you have Rio Claro. We have Princes Town and there will be ten­ders de­ployed to those. And the idea is to re­spond quick­ly from those sta­tions to a par­tic­u­lar lo­cal­i­ty, for ex­am­ple, Ma­yaro if one is not now avail­able,” Hinds said.

He said he and the Chief Fire Of­fi­cer have worked to­geth­er in To­co to pro­vide train­ing for peo­ple in that area to be­come aux­il­iary fire of­fi­cers so they can re­spond to in­ci­dents first be­fore the oth­er of­fi­cers from ma­jor sta­tions can ar­rive.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to Pres­i­dent of the Fire Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion Leo Ramkissoon to re­spond to the Min­is­ter’s claims there are no more out­stand­ing re­quests. He said Act­ing Chief Fire of­fi­cer Hutchin­son was ac­cu­rate in his state­ments that fire of­fi­cers have been op­er­at­ing hero­ical­ly in util­is­ing the re­sources they do have to serve the pub­lic but he said the re­al­i­ty is, they are in a state of Cri­sis.

He said sev­en fire sta­tions out of 25 do not have a fire ten­der.

“To cav­a­lier­ly say that still that trucks from oth­er sta­tions out­side the di­vi­sion re­spec­tive di­vi­sions have to re­spond to those sta­tion grounds with no fire truck as if to say there is no is­sue with the time it takes for that to take place and the lives that could be lost on the prop­er­ty that could be dam­aged is re­al­ly a mat­ter of rhetoric and pub­lic re­la­tions stunts,” Ramkissoon said.

He said he ac­knowl­edged that the min­is­ter did in fact give a com­mit­ment and while he be­lieves that he has not giv­en not true of the cri­sis in the ser­vice, he is l giv­ing him the ben­e­fit of the doubt that the gov­ern­ment is try­ing to ad­dress the sit­u­a­tion.