Derek Achong

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar promis­es 31 new po­lice and fire sta­tions will be built with­in the next two and a half years at a cost of $606 mil­lion. Per­sad-Bisses­sar made the an­nounce­ment at a sod-turn­ing cer­e­mo­ny on Wednes­day for a new $35 mil­lion Ari­ma Po­lice Sta­tion at Broad­way, Ari­ma.

The sta­tion is due for com­ple­tion in 15 months' time. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the new and im­proved sta­tions would as­sist the pro­tec­tive ser­vices in the crime fight. She said: "Po­lice and fire of­fi­cers can feel a sense of re­lief. The re­sources you re­quire are on the way." The pro­posed lo­ca­tions for the new sta­tions are Ari­ma, Besson Street, Cu­mu­to, Mal­oney, Man­zanil­la, St Joseph, Matelot, Matu­ra, Moru­ga, Pi­ar­co, Rox­bor­ough, St Clair, Mara­cas Bay, La Brea, Oropouche and Bras­so.

In ad­di­tion to the new po­lice sta­tions, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, a $194 mil­lion state of the art fa­cil­i­ty for the Air Guard would al­so be­come avail­able in the near fu­ture. She said ten­ders for the projects would be in­vit­ed by the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of T&T (Ude­cott) by end of the month.Per­sad-Bisses­sar com­mend­ed the work of the po­lice ser­vice dur­ing the on­go­ing na­tion­wide state of emer­gency. "There was a firm, mea­sured re­sponse to the sit­u­a­tion they found wher­ev­er they went. "Un­der pres­sure and in dan­ger­ous en­vi­ron­ments, they (the po­lice) car­ried out their du­ties with a lev­el of pro­fes­sion­al­ism that will make us all proud," Per­sad-Bisses­sar said. Dur­ing her fea­ture ad­dress at the cer­e­mo­ny, Per­sad-Bisses­sar told the small au­di­ence that she was not fo­cused on the ef­fect of the state of emer­gency on T&T's in­ter­na­tion­al rep­u­ta­tion.

"I am more con­cerned by the im­age of peo­ple dy­ing, of moth­ers cry­ing, of in­no­cent cit­i­zens cowl­ing in fear and of or­phaned chil­dren. These are the im­ages that con­cern me now," Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so not­ed that Gov­ern­ment's so­cial and men­tor­ship pro­grammes would al­so aid in re­duc­ing crime. Hous­ing and the En­vi­ron­ment Min­is­ter Roodal Mooni­lal who al­so spoke at the event, said the new fa­cil­i­ties for the pro­tec­tive ser­vices would in­clude gyms, train­ing rooms and con­fer­ence fa­cil­i­ties for in­ter­ac­tion with mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty.