Camille Clarke

Mal­oney res­i­dents are com­plain­ing that they lack em­ploy­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties, suf­fer from poor apart­ment in­fra­struc­ture, im­prop­er drainage, lack of com­mu­ni­ty fa­cil­i­ties, and de­te­ri­o­rat­ing roads. They voiced their com­plaints at a com­mu­ni­ty polic­ing meet­ing with Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er on Thurs­day night at the Mal­oney Re­gion­al Com­plex, Flamin­go Av­enue.

Warn­er ad­dressed the res­i­dents and said he plans to ad­dress their prob­lems as best he could. Re­fer­ring to the un­em­ploy­ment is­sue, Warn­er point­ed to a re­cruit­ment dri­ve for se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers at the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port. "For those who com­mit­ted an of­fence we can seek a pres­i­den­tial par­don to be gain­ful­ly em­ployed.

We have to look at those who are skilled and un­skilled and train those who aren't. We don't want to give a hand­out that don't last. They (hand­outs) keep you down. We want to give you an op­por­tu­ni­ty to lift up your­self," he said.

Warn­er said there are cit­i­zens in the com­mu­ni­ty who are role mod­els; those who need up­lift­ment and need to buck­le up. He said the pur­pose of the meet­ing was for the com­mu­ni­ty to move for­ward and re­store the spir­it it once had. "We came out to lis­ten to your con­cerns about what type of com­mu­ni­ty you should have and build to stop the scourge of crime," he said.

"Why is it that peo­ple can't come here with dig­ni­ty and re­spect as they do in West­moor­ings? What makes the dif­fer­ence?" he asked.

Res­i­dent, Ty­rone "Dumpling" Mar­cano, said gangs work­ing in the com­mu­ni­ty were cut down but there are many peo­ple who were will­ing to work. "We are be­ing treat­ed as aliens; with dis­crim­i­na­tion. We need to be treat­ed with re­spect," he said.

Mar­cano said chil­dren were suf­fer­ing from asth­ma and si­nus prob­lems due to the lack of ven­ti­la­tion in the apart­ments. An­oth­er res­i­dent said work gangs might be em­ployed in the area but they are be­ing su­per­vised by peo­ple from Laven­tille.

Warn­er then arranged to meet with Mar­cano and five oth­er res­i­dents to­mor­row af­ter­noon to dis­cuss the prob­lems in the com­mu­ni­ty and ar­rive at so­lu­tions. Min­is­ter of State in the Min­istry of Food Pro­duc­tion Jairam Seemu­n­gal who al­so at­tend­ed the meet­ing said young peo­ple were need­ed to as­sist in agri­cul­ture.

"We are fac­ing chal­lenges with food pro­duc­tion with re­spect to food se­cu­ri­ty. It is al­so a chal­lenge to find em­ploy­ment in agri­cul­ture when the av­er­age age of a farmer is 50,"?he said. Act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Stephen Williams, deputy com­mis­sion­er Mervyn Richard­son, se­nior su­per­in­ten­dents Gon­za­les, Wayne Dick and head of the De­fence Force Brigadier Ken­rick Ma­haraj al­so at­tend­ed.