JON­NELLE FAR­RELL

and AN­NA-LISA PAUL

Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (TPRC) chair­man Josi­ah Austin has ac­cused Gov­ern­ment of “run­ning roughshod “over lo­cal gov­ern­ment au­thor­i­ties by ig­nor­ing es­tab­lished pro­to­cols as they move to set up 30 po­lice posts across the coun­try.

La­belling it a gross dis­re­spect, he said con­tin­u­ing works on the post at the Ed­die Hart Recre­ation­al Ground in Tacarigua yes­ter­day was clear ev­i­dence they were not will­ing to heed the call for clear di­a­logue with those in charge.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia in Tacarigua as work­men con­tin­ued ex­ca­va­tion works while oth­ers se­cured the roof and oth­er parts of the struc­ture, Austin in­sist­ed the TPRC was not op­posed to the es­tab­lish­ment of the po­lice post. But he stressed prop­er chan­nels must be fol­lowed be­fore fur­ther de­vel­op­ment can pro­ceed.

Even as Austin spoke to re­porters, work­ers ap­peared un­fazed as they op­er­at­ed heavy ma­chin­ery, clear­ing the site and load­ing dump trucks.

Con­firm­ing the TPRC had served the five-day no­tice of vi­o­la­tion on the oc­cu­piers of the con­tro­ver­sial post, which is lo­cat­ed at the north­ern end of the ground, last Fri­day, Austin said they have un­til this Fri­day to re­spond.

He said the TPRC had been ad­vised to take le­gal ac­tion against the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of T&T (UDe­COTT), as the con­trac­tor, for tres­pass­ing.

Not­ing that the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC) was forced to un­der­take re­me­di­al work over the week­end to flush the CNG lines which were buried un­der­ground, Austin said this was proof of just how rushed the works were. How­ev­er, he said at least two re­quests to meet with UDe­COTT of­fi­cials are yet to be ac­knowl­edged.

“We are just ask­ing for ba­sic con­sul­ta­tion. As I have con­tin­ued to say, we are all for this,” he said.

“There are oth­er parts of the re­gion where this is tak­ing place and we have not stopped it, so it shows that we are all for it. But right here, which is vest­ed un­der the cor­po­ra­tion, they are do­ing this and no lev­el of con­sul­ta­tion, no lev­el of re­spect. They are here. It is a pap­py show and we would just like to have them know, con­sult with us.”

He said Gov­ern­ment must prop­er­ly con­sid­er the pro­posed de­vel­op­ment for the site be­fore mov­ing for­ward with any oth­er work.

Austin took the me­dia to an area close by, where he said NGC had been en­gaged in flush­ing op­er­a­tions be­tween Sat­ur­day and yes­ter­day, which he claimed was them “try­ing to cov­er up gas lines.”

Dis­miss­ing claims by Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der that the TPRC had been in­formed of the plan to erect a po­lice post at the site at least a year ago, Austin said this was not true.

He said the TPRC had its own plan, which was to be done in phas­es to im­prove the area and had in­clud­ed a po­lice post on the south­ern end of the grounds.

Say­ing of­fi­cials would have known this if dis­cus­sions had been had be­fore­hand, Austin said they learned of a post planned for Grand Bazaar by word of mouth and start­ed clean­ing up that site in prepa­ra­tion for it. He said al­though Acono, Mara­cas has been named as one of the 30 pro­posed sites, it is still un­known where the po­lice post will be erect­ed. The Grand Bazaar site falls square­ly with­in the re­mit of the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port, he added, but said no Cab­i­net note had been pre­sent­ed in re­la­tion to the Ed­die Hart Recre­ation Ground be­ing part of the project.

“UDe­COTT is the project man­ag­er but you have no re­al min­istry or agency that is re­al­ly con­trol­ling this project. It is re­al­ly all over the place right now.”

Deny­ing they were op­posed to the po­lice post due to po­lit­i­cal al­le­giance, Austin warned, “They are all about pro­pa­gan­da, and they will try to make this in­to some­thing more than it re­al­ly is.”

He claimed the Gov­ern­ment had been try­ing to “in­struct” them on how to ap­proach cer­tain de­vel­op­ment projects, while “our usu­al hir­ing for the reg­u­lar pub­lic that wants to be hired, would be done through the cor­po­ra­tion, they are now run­ning the hir­ing through the min­is­ter and the min­istry.”

“And now, they have come in­to our back­yard and just start work. They are dis­re­spect­ing the cor­po­ra­tions,” Austin said.