Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

An in­fra­struc­tur­al prob­lem has caused the tem­po­rary clo­sure of the re­cent­ly opened Good­wood Mi­cro Po­lice Post.

Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Rod­hil Kirk con­firmed the de­vel­op­ment yes­ter­day, not­ing on­ly the fa­cil­i­ties at Sig­nal Hill and Ply­mouth are cur­rent­ly op­er­a­tional.

Kirk told Guardian Me­dia the “in­fra­struc­tur­al chal­lenge” was iden­ti­fied on Wednes­day morn­ing and of­fi­cers were told to va­cate the premis­es un­til it was re­solved.

“We dis­cov­ered a lit­tle thing that we need to fix. We just need to treat with it,” he said.

He not­ed that six sol­diers were de­ployed to the Sig­nal Hill post on Wednes­day, on a ro­ta­tion­al ba­sis. While he could not re­veal how many re­port­ed for du­ty yes­ter­day, he not­ed they were present. 

Kirk said con­ver­sa­tions are on­go­ing with the De­fence Force to con­firm the man­pow­er for each post.

“The De­fence Force have shown their com­mit­ment to sup­port us, and we have been get­ting that sup­port from Cap­tain De­fre­itas and his team. That is some­thing we have to say thank you for.”

Kirk de­clined to re­veal how many po­lice of­fi­cers will be sta­tioned at each post.

“We have var­ied strengths,” he said.

Al­though ac­knowl­edg­ing his re­sources are strained, Kirk said the po­lice will con­tin­ue to ful­fil their man­date. He added res­i­dents have been wel­com­ing of the in­creased vis­i­bil­i­ty of law en­force­ment.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar of­fi­cial­ly opened all three fa­cil­i­ties on Tues­day af­ter­noon dur­ing a rib­bon-cut­ting cer­e­mo­ny in Sig­nal Hill, which was al­so at­tend­ed Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Roger Alexan­der, De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge and Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro.

Con­struc­tion of the posts be­gan on Au­gust 28 in To­ba­go.

The Gov­ern­ment has an­nounced 30 posts will be es­tab­lished na­tion­wide, with Gue­var­ro re­veal­ing that the three al­ready op­er­a­tional in Trinidad were al­ready achiev­ing suc­cess.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar was asked on Tues­day about the cost of the fa­cil­i­ties, but she did not have the in­for­ma­tion read­i­ly avail­able.

“Speak to the chair­man of Ude­cott. They were the per­sons who did the pro­cure­ment and do­ing the pay­ments, so off my head I can’t re­call,” she said.

Asked who the con­trac­tors were, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she did not know.

Ef­forts to con­tact Ude­cott chair­man Shankar Bidaisee for the in­for­ma­tion were un­suc­cess­ful up to yes­ter­day.