The Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties clar­i­fies what has been done to im­prove se­cu­ri­ty in the Heights of Aripo over the past few months, while con­demn­ing lies sur­round­ing the mat­ter. De­tails fol­low in this press re­lease from the Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties:

The Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties is sad­dened and ap­palled by the ut­ter­ly rep­re­hen­si­ble, de­spi­ca­ble and self-serv­ing be­hav­iour of the UNC Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for St. Au­gus­tine, Ms. Khadi­jah Ameen. In a des­per­ate at­tempt to dis­cred­it the Gov­ern­ment,  Ms. Ameen used the op­por­tu­ni­ty of the un­for­tu­nate death of a young woman to pro­mote her vile plat­form of po­lit­i­cal grand­stand­ing and self-serv­ing ac­tivism, in the form of a can­dle­light vig­il for the pur­pose of spew­ing dis­in­for­ma­tion, false­hoods, lies, mis­in­for­ma­tion and fab­ri­ca­tions about Gov­ern­ment’s ef­forts over the last few months to im­prove se­cu­ri­ty in the Heights of Aripo through the Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties’ Street Light­ing Pro­gramme.

Con­trary to the pre­var­i­ca­tions that fell from the lips of Ms. Khadi­jah Ameen, the Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties feels du­ty-bound to re­spond in de­fence of truth, de­cen­cy and hon­esty in the con­duct of our pub­lic af­fairs. The Min­is­ter wish­es to con­demn the Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for St. Au­gus­tine for her now no­to­ri­ous pat­tern of be­hav­ior of us­ing un­for­tu­nate oc­ca­sions like these to play on the emo­tions of fam­i­lies and the vic­tims of crime, and to sow seeds of dis­con­tent and di­vi­sive­ness among mem­bers of the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty for her own self­ish and nar­row po­lit­i­cal agen­da. 

The Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties has, over the last few months, been work­ing in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for the Con­stituen­cy of Ari­ma, the Ho­n­ourable Pene­lope Beck­les-Robin­son, the Aripo Vil­lage Coun­cil, and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion to im­prove the lev­el of se­cu­ri­ty in the Heights of Aripo through its Street Light­ing Pro­gramme. To date, de­spite chal­leng­ing fi­nan­cial cir­cum­stances, the Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties fund­ed the suc­cess­ful in­stal­la­tion of four­teen (14) new elec­tri­cal poles and thir­ty-two (32) new LED street lights in the Heights of Aripo.  These works were un­der­tak­en in two phas­es at a cost of $296,786.11, and this is in ad­di­tion to re­pairs of ex­ist­ing street­lights in the area.

The Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties re­it­er­ates the Gov­ern­ment’s con­tin­ued com­mit­ment to work­ing to­geth­er with all stake­hold­ers to im­prove the qual­i­ty of life for all our cit­i­zens. In col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Ari­ma, and all oth­er in­ter­est groups the Min­istry will con­tin­ue to im­prove se­cu­ri­ty in this area through the Street and Pub­lic Light­ing Pro­grammes, as re­sources be­come avail­able.