Gail Alexan­der

Cari­com Am­bas­sador Ralph Maraj—and oth­ers in var­i­ous sec­tors—yes­ter­day wel­comed Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s ac­tion against the noise men­ace in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Fol­low­ing the word of the PM’s in­struc­tions that all fetes at the Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my be stopped, as the noise has be­come un­bear­able for res­i­dents, Maraj is­sued a state­ment, say­ing, “For years, in my news­pa­per columns and ra­dio shows, I railed against noise pol­lu­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go. As promised in the elec­tion cam­paign, Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar is tak­ing strong ac­tion against this na­tion­al men­ace.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar, in her post on X (for­mer­ly Twit­ter), said that for far too long, the is­sue of noise pol­lu­tion and its im­pact on com­mu­ni­ties had been ig­nored, and her Gov­ern­ment was com­mit­ted to ad­dress­ing this as promised, with leg­is­la­tion be­fore year-end. She as­sured the fire­works law will be passed in Par­lia­ment, and in ad­di­tion, en­hanced noise pol­lu­tion leg­is­la­tion will be in­tro­duced to reg­u­late des­ig­nat­ed qui­et hours, as well as new re­stric­tions on fetes, mu­sic trucks, res­i­den­tial par­ties, and bars.

Yes­ter­day, Maraj said, “What a re­lief! Help is com­ing! Re­peat­ed or pro­longed ex­po­sure to ex­ces­sive noise can dri­ve per­sons in­sane or leave them men­tal­ly un­bal­anced. This is not to be tak­en light­ly. A noisy neigh­bour­hood, com­mu­ni­ty, or coun­try can be a bar­bar­ic place, with those re­spon­si­ble dis­play­ing no con­cern for oth­ers, es­pe­cial­ly the sick, chil­dren, or the el­der­ly. It al­so does not speak well of the lev­el of civil­i­sa­tion we have in Trinidad and To­ba­go. The hu­man mind needs times of qui­etude when you can think, re­flect, and go with­in.”

Maraj said he knows first-hand how neg­a­tive noise pol­lu­tion can be: “For many years, we have had sig­nif­i­cant noise pol­lu­tion when­ev­er Skin­ner Park had shows and oth­er events. But since this ad­min­is­tra­tion en­tered of­fice, we’ve not­ed a sig­nif­i­cant re­duc­tion in noise from Skin­ner Park. No per­son should be sub­ject­ed to the abu­sive, un­tram­melled noise of oth­ers. The elim­i­na­tion of the noise men­ace will en­gi­neer a much-need­ed so­cial change in T&T. Thank you, Prime Min­is­ter,” Maraj added.

Dur­ing the gen­er­al elec­tion cam­paign trail, Per­sad-Bisses­sar had promised to deal with noise pol­lu­tion, in­clud­ing reg­u­la­tions gov­ern­ing the use of fire­works, propos­ing cer­tain days or pe­ri­ods when fire­works will be per­mit­ted.

Oth­er pro­pos­als by the UNC had in­volved a manda­to­ry cut-off time for all open-air events re­quir­ing a dance­hall li­cence and spe­cif­ic leg­is­la­tion reg­u­lat­ing the use and cut-off times for mu­sic trucks. There have been many com­plaints about the lat­ter.

Res­i­dents al­so wel­come Kam­la’s ‘no noise’ law

Aside from Maraj’s view, PM Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s state­ment about the up­com­ing reg­u­la­tion of noise pol­lu­tion has al­so met with warm re­cep­tion from oth­ers in ar­eas af­fect­ed by ex­ces­sive noise.

One work­er at a se­niors’ home in Port-of-Spain point­ed out that in the last few years, a J’Ou­vert band has come out an­nu­al­ly from a lo­ca­tion near the se­nior home, cre­at­ing loud noise.

Con­cern has al­so been ex­pressed by some peo­ple in res­i­den­tial com­mu­ni­ties where in­dus­tri­al or com­mer­cial busi­ness­es op­er­ate with high noise lev­els, in­clud­ing home-based op­er­a­tions and sim­i­lar en­ter­pris­es.

The Fire­works Bill, which will cov­er a va­ri­ety of noise pol­lu­tion is­sues, is ex­pect­ed to be dealt with in Par­lia­ment be­fore year-end. Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials pro­ject­ed that the bill may on­ly need a sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty (gov­ern­ment votes alone) to pass.

The Sen­ate re­sumes to­mor­row. Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness in the House, Bar­ry Padarath, did not re­ply to Guardian Me­dia’s ques­tions on when the House would re­sume and what bills would be con­sid­ered.