Kevon Felmine

While politi­cians wran­gle over the use of sol­diers in the fight against crime, San Fer­nan­do po­lice are en­gag­ing the part­ner­ship of Cepep and URP as part of its own an­ti-crime ini­tia­tive.An­nounc­ing the an­ti-crime ini­tia­tive dur­ing a me­dia brief­ing at San Fer­nan­do City Hall, San Fer­nan­do May­or Dr Navi Mu­radali said URP will be­gin an ex­er­cise to de­mol­ish aban­doned and di­lap­i­dat­ed struc­tures used by crim­i­nals to con­duct il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties. He said Cepep will clear over­grown lots in the city.

"This joint part­ner­ship has been set up to look at the var­i­ous strate­gies in the city of San Fer­nan­do as we en­gage the var­i­ous com­mu­ni­ties as we have many at-risk com­mu­ni­ties in the city."We have iden­ti­fied a pro­gramme to deal with the aban­doned hous­es, di­lap­i­dat­ed struc­tures and the over­grown lots in our city. We have gone to our com­mu­ni­ty meet­ings where we've been told by the po­lice and by res­i­dents that these over­grown lots pose a se­ri­ous risk as peo­ple hide in the bush­es.

"There­fore, they are po­ten­tial ar­eas where crime can be com­mit­ted, es­pe­cial­ly in the di­lap­i­dat­ed build­ings. They al­so pose a risk and there­fore our en­gi­neer­ing de­part­ment is look­ing at the whole is­sue and if we are to de­mol­ish these struc­tures we must em­bark on a cam­paign," Mu­radali said.Cepep's chair­man Adesh De­onar­ine said they have a work­force of 12,000 and will be en­gag­ing work­ers in a crime watch ini­tia­tive to iden­ti­fy un­known crime hotspots.

"Our sup­port for the city is try­ing to erad­i­cate or elim­i­nate, and sup­port the crime ini­tia­tive by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice. We sup­port this ini­tia­tive 100 per cent be­cause we are about clean­ing and in keep­ing the city clean, we want to keep the crime sit­u­a­tion clean as well," he said.The may­or said a hot­line will al­so be es­tab­lished so res­i­dents can pro­vide the lo­ca­tion of over­grown lots and di­lap­i­dat­ed struc­tures to the city cor­po­ra­tion.

ACP (South) Glen­da Jen­ning-Smith, who was al­so at the brief­ing, said while crime re­mains at a man­age­able lev­el po­lice pa­trols and man­pow­er on the streets will be in­creased."As we look at the amount of of­fences for this year it is still less than the amount of of­fences that oc­curred last year and the year pri­or to that. It is man­age­able. We've had a re­duc­tion in se­ri­ous crimes in San Fer­nan­do as much as 21 to 25 per cent in some ar­eas.

Last month two grue­some mur­ders in South Trinidad–the beat­ing to death of Philip­pine pen­sion­er Car­men Ram­jat­tan and the be­head­ing of ex-con­vict Learie Ce­bal­lo–and a dar­ing rob­bery at De­tour's Gents Store on High Street, San Fer­nan­do oc­curred.Smith al­so said the use the po­lice youth clubs to ed­u­cate young peo­ple on al­ter­na­tive lifestyles will al­so be part of their long-term crime pre­ven­tion plans.URP's re­gion­al head Shur­land Ben­gochea al­so at­tend­ed the brief­ing.