Geisha Kow­lessar

Laven­tille res­i­dents soon will be able to en­gage in var­i­ous sport­ing ac­tiv­i­ties by us­ing new fa­cil­i­ties, in­clud­ing bas­ket­ball and net­ball courts and foot­ball fields amount­ing to $2.5 mil­lion. Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er made the an­nounce­ment while speak­ing yes­ter­day at a town meet­ing on the com­pound of the HDC apart­ment build­ing at Man­go Rose, Laven­tille.

Out­lin­ing what Sport Min­is­ter Anil Roberts would be do­ing, start­ing from this week, Warn­er said: "In the St Paul Street sport­ing facil­ties he's spend­ing $547,000, in John John bas­ket­ball court he's spend­ing $368,000. "At Plai­sance Trace he's spend­ing $291,000, at Bev­er­ly Hills recre­ation ground he's spend­ing $373,000... at Basilon Street, for foot­ball, he's spend­ing $411,000, at Basilon Street, for net­ball, he's spend­ing $503,000 and at Fort Pic­ton $396,000."

Warn­er promis­es $2.5 Mil­lion to­wards sports fa­cil­i­ties in Laven­tille

He said such facil­ties would al­so re­new the pride of Laven­tille res­i­dents, adding they will be work­ing to im­prove the com­mu­ni­ty for them­selves. Warn­er said he al­so was en­gaged in talks with Fi­nance Min­is­ter Lar­ry Howai to es­tab­lish a First Cit­i­zens Bank in Laven­tille. Say­ing Laven­tille was so close to Port-of-Spain "yet to far away" Warn­er added: "I have been speak­ing to Min­is­ter Lar­ry Howai and I have been ask­ing him to try to get one of the branch­es of First Cit­i­zens Bank in Laven­tille.

"Why is it Laven­tille does not have a bank? Why is it Laven­tille is so close to Port-of-Spain and yet to far away from Port-of-Spain?" He said Laven­tille al­so must be giv­en the re­spect and recog­ni­tion it de­served. Say­ing there had been no mur­ders in 16 days in Laven­tille Warn­er said plans al­ready have start­ed to build a dance­hall area in the dis­trict. "In Laven­tille there has been no mur­ders or se­ri­ous of­fences and I have a heart full of joy. Let them know that we can't give up on Laven­tille," Warn­er said.

He al­so called for the stig­ma­ti­sa­tion of Laven­tille to be re­moved. He added: "The fact is whether you are in Ch­agua­nas West or Siparia, whether it be Laven­tille or Diego Mar­tin West all of us are peo­ple too and we have to un­der­stand we have to move be­yond the lev­el of dis­crim­i­na­tion... we have to bring back Laven­tille with­in the cra­dle of re­spect it de­serves."

Warn­er is ex­pect­ed to meet to­day with the Min­is­ters of Works and In­fra­struc­ture, Sport and the Peo­ple and So­cial De­vel­op­ment to dis­cuss fur­ther de­tails of in­fra­struc­tur­al work in Laven­tille. Act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Stephen Williams said the po­lice must part­ner with com­mu­ni­ties to fight crime, adding it can­not be done by lock­ing up peo­ple alone.

He said: "The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice has recog­nised that en­force­ment, which has been the dom­i­nant mode of op­er­a­tion in the past, can­not ef­fec­tive­ly serve our coun­try to the peo­ple's best in­ter­est. "In these cir­cum­stances we are seek­ing oth­er ways of en­gage­ment to en­sure we can bring to bear on all com­mu­ni­ties lev­els of safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty, con­sis­tent with what the peo­ple ex­pect, what the peo­ple need and what the peo­ple de­serve."