Chair­man of the Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (CT­TRC), Hen­ry Awong, says the Cor­po­ra­tion is yet to see an of­fi­cial re­quest to set up a mass stor­age site in Freeport for the bod­ies of those who have died from COVID-19.

“The re­cent an­nounce­ment by Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer, Dr. Roshan Paras­ram, con­cern­ing the es­tab­lish­ment of a mass stor­age site in Freeport for bod­ies of per­sons who died from COVID-19, came as a sur­prise to the lo­cal gov­ern­ing body, the Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (CT­TRC),” the Cor­po­ra­tion said in a re­lease is­sued to­day.

“As far as we are aware, no re­quest for ap­proval for any such build­ing or ac­tiv­i­ty was re­ceived by the Cor­po­ra­tion,” Hen­ry Awong stat­ed.

The CT­TRC Chair­man points out:

“The use of a pri­vate ware­house for stor­age of bod­ies would re­quire Town and Coun­try Plan­ning ap­proval and an as­so­ci­at­ed op­por­tu­ni­ty to make ob­jec­tions and rep­re­sen­ta­tions by stake­hold­ers.”

Chair­man Awong al­so ques­tioned oth­er op­tions were not ex­plored:

“…why a ware­house in a res­i­den­tial area was se­lect­ed, when safer op­tions like the use of re­frig­er­at­ed con­tain­ers at the near­by Cou­va Hos­pi­tal and Mul­ti-Train­ing Fa­cil­i­ty, or on the Petrotrin com­pound which are iso­lat­ed from res­i­den­tial ac­tiv­i­ty, could have been uti­lized.”

In the re­lease, he asks, “the Min­istry of Health to let good sense pre­vail and not bring COVID-19 mor­tu­ary fa­cil­i­ties to res­i­den­tial ar­eas where com­mu­ni­ties would be sen­si­tized and have great con­cerns for their safe­ty.”