Close to 5,000 cit­i­zens have ap­plied for po­si­tions in the Prae­di­al Lar­ce­ny Squad (PLS) that were ad­ver­tised in March. Hun­dreds have been short­list­ed and screened for the post.

So said se­nior cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions of­fi­cer at the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture Brent Zephyrine in re­sponse to ques­tions by the Sun­day Guardian.

He al­so re­vealed that the min­istry is work­ing to ac­quire five ve­hi­cles for the squad.

“Cur­rent­ly, ef­forts are un­der­way to ac­quire five ad­di­tion­al ve­hi­cles to aug­ment the cur­rent fleet,” he added.

He said the min­istry was cog­nisant of the role of the PLS in safe­guard­ing farm­ers’ liveli­hoods and en­sur­ing food se­cu­ri­ty.

Over the last five years, Zephyrine said, the min­istry has recog­nised the need to bol­ster and strength­en the squad’s ef­forts in en­sur­ing the ef­fec­tive de­liv­ery of its man­date to stake­hold­ers.

The PLS was es­tab­lished in 2013 and charged with the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of re­duc­ing the in­ci­dences of theft from farm­ers in the coun­try through im­ple­ment­ing var­i­ous in­ter­dic­tion and sup­pres­sion strate­gies, in­clud­ing pa­trols, sur­veil­lance, ar­rests, and pros­e­cu­tions.

On ad­di­tion­al man­pow­er for the PLS, Zephrine said the min­istry’s Hu­man Re­source Unit start­ed re­cruit­ment ex­er­cis­es to fill va­can­cies in the po­si­tions of in­spec­tor, sergeant, cor­po­ral, and con­sta­ble.

“A to­tal of 4,874 ap­pli­ca­tions were re­ceived for the ad­ver­tised po­si­tions with­in the stip­u­lat­ed time frame of March 8th to 13th, 2023.”

Of this fig­ure, 4,152 ap­plied for the po­si­tion of con­sta­ble of which 942 were short­list­ed and 739 were suc­cess­ful­ly screened.

These 739 ap­pli­cants were in­vit­ed to write the en­trance ex­am­i­na­tion yes­ter­day.

“Fol­low­ing this phase of the re­cruit­ment process, suc­cess­ful can­di­dates (based on the or­der of mer­it list gen­er­at­ed from the en­trance ex­am­i­na­tion) will be re­quired to un­der­go an in­ter­view, back­ground in­ves­ti­ga­tion, and med­ical and psy­cho­log­i­cal eval­u­a­tions pri­or to their ten-week in­duc­tion train­ing pro­gramme which is ten­ta­tive­ly sched­uled to com­mence in Ju­ly 2023,” Zephyrine added.

Re­gard­ing ap­pli­cants for the po­si­tions of in­spec­tor, sergeant, and cor­po­ral, Zephyrine ex­plained that ap­pli­cants for these po­si­tions have been short­list­ed and in­ter­viewed while steps are cur­rent­ly be­ing tak­en to have the suc­cess­ful can­di­dates com­plete med­ical and psy­cho­log­i­cal eval­u­a­tions be­fore be­ing en­gaged on con­tract.

“In ad­di­tion to the ac­qui­si­tion of phys­i­cal as­sets and changes to the staff com­ple­ment, the min­istry is al­so in­tro­duc­ing 21st-cen­tu­ry man­age­ment prin­ci­ples in­to the squad and its struc­ture to achieve op­ti­mal re­sults,” he said.

Be­tween 2020-2022, dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, the PLS, ac­cord­ing to Zephyrine, con­tin­ued con­duct­ing raids, re­sult­ing in charges be­ing laid and a 42  per cent con­vic­tion rate.

In 2022, the PLS con­duct­ed 1,156 pa­trols and vis­it­ed over 16,185 farms.

Of the 199 re­ports re­ceived, 125 of­fences were record­ed.

Zephyrine said the min­istry was com­mit­ted to strength­en­ing the PLS and “is work­ing as­sid­u­ous­ly to ad­dress the unit’s is­sues.”

To com­bat prae­di­al lar­ce­ny, he said the PLS al­so meets reg­u­lar­ly with mem­bers of the farm­ing com­mu­ni­ties and What­sApp groups have been set up where nec­es­sary “to share in­for­ma­tion in re­al-time.”

The PLS, he as­sured, will con­tin­ue to work with the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice and Coast Guard to pro­tect agri­cul­ture.