AN­GE­LO JE­DIDI­AH

an­ge­lo.je­didi­ah@guardian.co.tt

De­spite the gov­ern­ment’s $40 mil­lion al­lo­ca­tion, health and safe­ty breach­es con­tin­ue to pre­vail at fire sta­tions na­tion­wide.

Bud­get doc­u­ments show that the T&T Fire Ser­vice was al­lo­cat­ed $61 mil­lion in fis­cal 2022, with $40.8 mil­lion for much-need­ed up­grades to ex­ist­ing fire sta­tions, con­struc­tion of new sta­tions and pro­cure­ment of ve­hi­cles and equip­ment. How­ev­er, Fire Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Leo Ramkissoon said he does not know what was done with that al­lo­cat­ed sum.

“I can’t an­swer for the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty about that. I telling every­one we don’t have the equip­ment. How I go­ing to ex­plain about $40 mil­lion? I don’t know what they do with that,” he said.

Ramkissoon said while that re­mains a con­cern, the high­est pri­or­i­ty for fire of­fi­cers is their health and safe­ty.

“The sit­u­a­tion of­fi­cers are fac­ing is their health is at risk and they are ba­si­cal­ly doomed,” he said.

There have been pub­lic crit­i­cisms of de­lays and hin­drances in the re­sponse by fire of­fi­cers fol­low­ing a re­cent dead­ly house fire.

One so­cial me­dia user post­ed: “On­ly in T&T it takes some­thing to hap­pen and lives to be lost in or­der to get ba­sic sup­plies . . . like the gov­ern­ment do the peo­ple a favour.”

Ramkissoon said fire of­fi­cers are stand­ing in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the pub­lic in call­ing for the gov­ern­ment to act. He claimed fire of­fi­cers are of­ten con­flict­ed when it is time to re­port to work, of­ten sac­ri­fic­ing not on­ly their lives but their abil­i­ty to re­spond to fires.

“Of­fi­cers are spend­ing mon­ey out of their own pock­ets to buy ma­te­ri­als and re­sources to car­ry out their func­tion as fire of­fi­cers while the State is treat­ing with the Fire Ser­vice as the bas­tard child of the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and is re­al­ly ne­glect­ing the Fire Ser­vice,” he said.