KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

More than three years af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley hand-de­liv­ered a mem­o­ran­dum of un­der­stand­ing to the Is­lam­ic com­mu­ni­ty for a place to bury their dead, the Dou­glas Road Bar­rack­pore Mus­lim Ceme­tery in of­fi­cial­ly opened on Wednes­day.

Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Faris Al-Rawi and Dou­glas Road Bar­rack­pore Mus­lim Ceme­tery Com­mit­tee pres­i­dent Imam Fazar Al­la­ham un­veiled a com­mem­o­ra­tive plaque to mark the oc­ca­sion.

Min­utes ear­li­er, Princes Town Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Gowrie Roop­nar­ine said he would have to beg the min­istry for more funds for ceme­tery up­keep and re­pairs to Cu­mu­to Trace lead­ing to the bur­ial ground as the al­lo­ca­tion for ceme­ter­ies is on­ly $300,000. In re­sponse, Al-Rawi told Roop­nar­ine to sup­port the Gov­ern­ment’s ef­forts to col­lect the mod­est prop­er­ty tax­es that would al­low mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions to col­lect funds and ap­ply them to ex­pen­di­ture ap­pro­pri­ate­ly.

Pri­vate own­ers do­nat­ed the land for the ceme­tery, and in 2011 a com­mit­tee com­pris­ing 17 masjids, ap­plied for per­mis­sion for the bur­ial ground.

Roop­nar­ine said al­though the cor­po­ra­tion did not have the $2.4 mil­lion the Rur­al De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny spent to com­plete the project, it en­sured it ob­tained ap­provals from sev­er­al agen­cies.

“For ceme­ter­ies in the re­gion of Princes Town, our al­lo­ca­tion is $300,000 for 14 ceme­ter­ies, so I can­not stand here and boast and say I give you that, but I can stand here and say that I am proud as a non-Mus­lim at the Princes Town Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion that I worked with my vice chair­man, mem­bers of coun­cil and ad­min­is­tra­tion for the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty of the re­gion of Princes Town,” he said.

Roop­nar­ine said for­mer Moru­ga/Table­land MP Clifton De Coteau start­ed the process un­der the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment.

Al-Rawi said Row­ley’s com­mit­ment to get­ting the ceme­tery for the com­mu­ni­ty led to its re­al­i­sa­tion. Row­ley vis­it­ed the Sub­ra­tee Trace Masjid in Bar­rack­pore, in 2020, where mem­bers of the An­ju­man Sun­nat-ul-Ja­maat As­so­ci­a­tion, Trinidad Mus­lim League, Tack­veey­at­ul Is­lam­ic As­so­ci­a­tion and the Ah­madiyya Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty wit­nessed the hand­ing over of doc­u­ments for the ceme­tery de­vel­op­ment on eight acres of land.

Al-Rawi said peo­ple would not have a prob­lem pay­ing mod­est con­tri­bu­tions of $100 or $200 a year or month if they knew the use of the funds.

“The more mon­ey we have to man­age things, the more abil­i­ty we have to de­liv­er ser­vices to peo­ple, so very mod­est con­tri­bu­tions to one side give you room to spend on the oth­er. In this case, our Rur­al De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny was able to spend about $2.4 mil­lion to do a sig­nif­i­cant amount of work.”

The ceme­tery has fa­cil­i­ties cater­ing to Is­lam­ic fu­ner­als, such as a prayer room, Janazah area, wash­ing area, re­cep­tion, and wash­room fa­cil­i­ties, as well as a car park and walk­way to the graves.