An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

As res­i­dents of Harpe Place, East Port-of-Spain, con­tin­ue to wait for se­cu­ri­ty gates to be in­stalled at the apart­ment com­plex where five peo­ple were killed in a mass shoot­ing al­most three months ago, a re­fur­bished play park in the main court­yard is a wel­come dis­trac­tion from the pain and loss still af­fect­ing the com­mu­ni­ty.

Speak­ing at the park’s re­launch­ing yes­ter­day, Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Camille Robin­son-Reg­is said the long-await­ed se­cu­ri­ty gates for the com­mu­ni­ty will be in­stalled with­in the next two months. She at­trib­uted the de­lay to the ten­der­ing process but as­sured Gov­ern­ment is se­ri­ous about en­sur­ing the safe­ty of all res­i­dents.

The min­is­ter said the up­grad­ed play park is the first in a se­ries of col­lab­o­ra­tive projects be­tween the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) and First Cit­i­zens. Play parks will be set up in cer­tain ar­eas and up­grad­ed where they al­ready ex­ist, she said.

The up­grade of the Harpe Place play park re­port­ed­ly cost $125,000. Robin­son-Reg­is said it was an ap­pro­pri­ate place to start fol­low­ing the dead­ly shoot­ing on March 16. In that in­ci­dent around 11 am, a car drove on­to the HDC com­pound on Ob­ser­va­to­ry Street and the oc­cu­pants opened fire on res­i­dents.

Rudolph James and Randy Graves died at the scene, while Sgt Lar­ry Phillip, Pe­te No­ray and De­von Jack died at hos­pi­tal. Sev­er­al oth­er peo­ple suf­fered in­juries.

Res­i­dents yes­ter­day said life in the hous­ing scheme has changed dra­mat­i­cal­ly since the shoot­ing but the com­mu­nal love is still strong.

Robin­son-Reg­is said, “We thought it was im­por­tant for us to start at Harpe Place giv­en the trag­ic in­ci­dent that did take place here and the sad­ness that still pre­vails here in the area. We felt it would be a good op­por­tu­ni­ty to bring some light back to the area.”

Re­fer­ring to the planned se­cu­ri­ty up­grades, she as­sured that they were aimed at in­still­ing a sense of hope and bring­ing light back to the com­mu­ni­ty.

En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young, the MP for Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West, added, “The Harpe is a very im­por­tant part of the in­fra­struc­ture for us here in East Port-of-Spain.”

He com­mend­ed First Cit­i­zens for ac­cept­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s chal­lenge to part­ner in the up­lift­ment of com­mu­ni­ties and said sim­i­lar ini­tia­tives had al­ready been ex­e­cut­ed in oth­er parts of the con­stituen­cy.

First Cit­i­zens gen­er­al man­ag­er, In­vest­ment Ser­vices Ltd, Robin Lewis, said sig­nif­i­cant re­sources had been al­lo­cat­ed to­wards these ven­tures. He said the bank will con­tin­ue to sup­port these types of projects and fur­ther ini­tia­tives will be un­veiled in Moru­ga and To­ba­go.

“I can’t tell you the joy it brings to us as a group, to be able to give back to our cit­i­zens, to our com­mu­ni­ty and most im­por­tant­ly, our cus­tomers,” he said.

Self-ap­point­ed “play park su­per­vi­sor” Tami­ka Gill, whose apart­ment is the clos­est to the play area, wel­comed the as­sur­ances by Robin­son-Reg­is and Young that se­cu­ri­ty on the com­pound will be im­proved. She said the se­cu­ri­ty gates “would put some sort of safe­ty in the ones that don’t re­al­ly be­lieve.”