Carisa Lee

Re­porter

Carisa.Lee@cnc3.co.tt

To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine says he’s pleased they have been able to curb crime on the is­land in the last year.

“We have been able to re­verse what seems to be a dead­ly trend that start­ed last year or the year be­fore; we have been able to re­verse that so far,” Au­gus­tine said while speak­ing at the swear­ing-in cer­e­mo­ny of the new Sec­re­tary of the Di­vi­sion of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, Youth De­vel­op­ment and Sport, Wane Clarke, at Pres­i­dent’s House, St Ann’s, yes­ter­day.

Au­gus­tine re­vealed that the is­land has had three mur­ders for the year so far, when com­pared to 16 at the same time last year. He at­trib­uted the THA’s suc­cess in the crime fight to the work of those in the Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Di­vi­sion.

“That came about be­cause of the strong work eth­ic of As­sis­tant Sec­re­tary, now Sec­re­tary Clarke, Samp­son and oth­ers in Com Dev, the youth ini­tia­tives, the en­gage­ment in so far as re­vi­tal­is­ing all our sport­ing fa­cil­i­ties,” Au­gus­tine ex­plained.

Ear­li­er this week, the THA launched a new emer­gency hot­line on the is­land to pro­vide se­cu­ri­ty sup­port. Those in need of help can call 631-HELP (4357) to re­port crimes con­fi­den­tial­ly. The phone is housed at the Shir­van Road Po­lice Sta­tion.

He said the Safe To­ba­go App, which has been de­vel­oped in part­ner­ship with the Di­vi­sion of Tourism, Cul­ture, An­tiq­ui­ties and Trans­porta­tion, will be avail­able for down­load on IOS and An­droid de­vices.

Mean­while, Clarke said con­tin­u­ing the re­fur­bish­ment of sport­ing in­fra­struc­ture was high on his agen­da, not­ing they are on an is­land­wide dri­ve to get dor­mant fa­cil­i­ties “up and run­ning.”

Clarke re­placed the cur­rent To­ba­go West MP Joel Samp­son. Au­gus­tine al­so con­firmed that As­sem­bly­man Megan Mor­ri­son, As­sis­tant Sec­re­tary in the Di­vi­sion of Health, Well­ness and So­cial Pro­tec­tion, was re­as­signed to the Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Di­vi­sion.

The Chief Sec­re­tary de­tailed the pur­pose of the is­land­wide dri­ve.

“The job is al­so one, pro­tect­ing com­mu­ni­ties, two, en­sur­ing that we de­vel­op path­ways for our young peo­ple to self-ac­tu­alise, and three, we have a strong man­date where sports tourism is con­cerned, and I think Mr Clarke is the ide­al per­son to do that for us,” he said.