Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Fire Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Keone Guy is wel­com­ing the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the pro­cure­ment of wood­en lad­ders for the Fire Ser­vice, es­pe­cial­ly af­ter an of­fi­cer was in­jured us­ing one of them.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Guy said re­ports that both the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion and the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al were now in­ves­ti­gat­ing the process in which the ser­vice ac­quired the 20 lad­ders was com­fort­ing.

The mat­ter was first raised last Oc­to­ber when busi­ness­man and ac­tivist In­shan Ish­mael filed a Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion re­quest seek­ing the cost and sup­pli­ers of goods to the Fire Ser­vice be­tween 2015 to 2023. The 20 lad­ders were sup­plied by Amal­ga­mat­ed Se­cu­ri­ty for $999,000.

At the time, then fire as­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Leo Ramkissoon called for the mat­ter to be in­ves­ti­gat­ed. Ear­li­er this year, both the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion and the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al wrote to the Fire Ser­vice ask­ing for de­tailed in­for­ma­tion on the pro­cure­ment process.

Guy said apart from the fi­nan­cial ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties that the as­so­ci­a­tion raised, the union was most­ly con­cerned with the safe­ty of their of­fi­cers.

“Let me just say that the rea­son that we call for this in­ves­ti­ga­tion, or part of the rea­son, was main­ly mo­ti­vat­ed by the sig­nif­i­cant safe­ty con­cerns of these lad­ders. Since Oc­to­ber to now, we have had at least one re­port of an of­fi­cer be­ing in­jured in the line of du­ty. It’s not just a mat­ter of fi­nan­cial con­cerns. If there is a need for the po­lice to be in­volved, I will leave that up to those that know bet­ter about these mat­ters. But the ma­jor pri­or­i­ty is the safe­ty of of­fi­cers.”

Guy said the of­fi­cer was in­jured in Jan­u­ary af­ter the pul­ley sys­tem on one of the lad­ders mal­func­tioned, caus­ing the lad­der to col­lapse on the of­fi­cer’s hand. He said the of­fi­cer was lucky she was not more se­ri­ous­ly in­jured.

He said based on his in­spec­tion, the pul­ley on the lad­der was mod­i­fied af­ter it was pur­chased from the orig­i­nal sup­pli­er. This mod­i­fi­ca­tion, he claimed, is what caused the lad­der to col­lapse on the of­fi­cer.

Guy said apart from the mod­i­fi­ca­tion of the lad­ders, the use of wood­en lad­ders was an­ti­quat­ed.

Last No­vem­ber, Chief Fire Of­fi­cer Arnold Bris­tow de­fend­ed the pur­chase. Bris­tow said then that wood­en lad­ders have al­ways been a key el­e­ment in the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s ap­pa­ra­tus.

Bris­tow told Guardian Me­dia that since elec­tri­cal trans­mis­sion lines across the coun­try are still lo­cat­ed above ground, fire of­fi­cers make tac­ti­cal de­ci­sions about which lad­ders to use in a par­tic­u­lar sit­u­a­tion.

“The stan­dard fire truck ap­pli­ance would nor­mal­ly be re­quired to car­ry three lad­ders, a first-floor lad­der, a 13.5-me­tre ex­ten­sion lad­der, as well as a 10.5-me­tre ex­ten­sion lad­der. It has al­ways been the choice of the Fire Ser­vice to have wood lad­ders be­cause wood does not con­duct elec­tric­i­ty,” he said.

Calls to Bris­tow, who is cur­rent­ly on va­ca­tion, went unan­swered.

Guy said when the lad­ders were de­liv­ered, Bris­tow was the Chief Fire Of­fi­cer and pri­or to that, he was the brigade en­gi­neer. He ex­plained that the brigade en­gi­neer is the per­son re­spon­si­ble for in­spect­ing and ap­prov­ing pur­chas­es such as the lad­ders.

How­ev­er, Guy said he was un­aware whether Bris­tow was the per­son re­spon­si­ble for ap­prov­ing the wood­en lad­ders then.