Chester Sam­bra­no

Lead Ed­i­tor–News­gath­er­ing

chester.sam­bra­no@guardian.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has pledged to work with the Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty to de­ter­mine how quick­ly re­pairs can be com­plet­ed at the Scar­bor­ough Fire Sta­tion.

She made the com­mit­ment last night while for­mal­ly hand­ing over a new fire ten­der for Rox­bor­ough, To­ba­go.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she had heard con­cerns from To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine and MP David Thomas about the out­stand­ing re­pairs and the need to move fire­fight­ers out of rent­ed ac­com­mo­da­tion.

“I have heard your pleas, and I will take your pleas, be­cause he al­so heard it, the Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty, and let’s work to­geth­er to see what we can do and how fast we can do it to get the sta­tion up and run­ning,” she said.

Au­gus­tine said the sta­tion had been gut­ted by fire and lat­er re­paired through the com­bined ef­forts of the Fire Ser­vice, the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force in To­ba­go and the THA’s Di­vi­sion of In­fra­struc­ture.

Out­stand­ing work in­cludes in­stalling a fire sup­pres­sion sys­tem, con­struct­ing a kit room and re­pair­ing the floor, he said.

Com­plet­ing the work would al­low the Fire Ser­vice to leave its rent­ed ac­com­mo­da­tion and redi­rect the sav­ings to­wards buy­ing ad­di­tion­al fire ten­ders, Au­gus­tine added.

He al­so high­light­ed the need for bet­ter emer­gency re­sponse cov­er­age in north­ern To­ba­go, say­ing the dis­tance fire­fight­ers must trav­el to reach Cas­tara posed chal­lenges. He said the pos­si­bil­i­ty of es­tab­lish­ing a sub­sta­tion in the vil­lage would be dis­cussed with se­nior Fire Ser­vice of­fi­cers.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the new ten­der was part of a wider de­ploy­ment of six ve­hi­cles val­ued at ap­prox­i­mate­ly $69 mil­lion. The oth­er fire ten­ders are for Pe­nal, Ma­yaro, Princes Town and Point Fortin.

“This fire truck strength­ens To­ba­go’s re­sponse when lives and prop­er­ty are at risk,” she said.

She de­scribed the ve­hi­cle as a high­ly equipped ten­der suit­ed to mod­ern fire­fight­ing de­mands, but stressed that an ef­fec­tive emer­gency re­sponse al­so de­pends on a func­tion­ing fire sta­tion.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the Scar­bor­ough sta­tion was de­liv­ered in 2020 at a re­port­ed cost of $37 mil­lion, but roof leaks were re­port­ed that same year.

She al­so cit­ed con­cerns Thomas raised in Par­lia­ment last year about the qual­i­ty of the work­man­ship, elec­tri­cal prob­lems, a non-func­tion­ing stand­by gen­er­a­tor, wa­ter pumps and san­i­ta­tion.

“Those re­ports un­der­line why in­vest­ment must be judged by how well it works,” she said, adding that fire­fight­ers need­ed de­pend­able fa­cil­i­ties and ve­hi­cles.

“Main­te­nance must nev­er be an af­ter­thought.”

The Prime Min­is­ter said the 2027 Bud­get es­ti­mates in­clud­ed $7.355 mil­lion for To­ba­go un­der Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty.

She urged the Fire Ser­vice to main­tain its train­ing, sched­uled main­te­nance and readi­ness checks to keep its equip­ment op­er­a­tional. She al­so called on res­i­dents and busi­ness­es to prac­tise fire pre­ven­tion and fol­low safe prac­tices.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar for­mal­ly hand­ed over the ten­der, thank­ing fire­fight­ers serv­ing To­ba­go and ex­press­ing hope that the ve­hi­cle would reach peo­ple in dan­ger quick­ly and help bring them safe­ly through emer­gen­cies.