Loot­ers, mind your own an­i­mals and plant your own crops!

That was the ap­peal from Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Kaz­im Ho­sein yes­ter­day in the Sen­ate dur­ing his re­ply to Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Wade Mark’s ques­tion about mea­sures to strength­en the Prae­di­al Lar­ce­ny Squad (PLS) giv­en re­ports of large-scale loot­ing of farm­ers’ crops and live­stock.

Ho­sein said the min­istry has been as­sess­ing the op­er­a­tions of the PLS which has a to­tal of 33 of­fi­cers in var­i­ous po­si­tions.

“Due to height­ened il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ty im­pact­ing our farm­ers, the PLS has been util­is­ing its con­nec­tions with the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice, T&T Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Ser­vice and the Es­tate Man­age­ment and Busi­ness De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (EM­BD) Po­lice in or­der to re­spond and as­sist,” he said.

“The unit has al­so been mak­ing ad­just­ments in or­der to re­align with the cur­rent needs based on re­ports re­ceived. This is to fa­cil­i­tate an ad­e­quate re­sponse util­is­ing the of­fi­cers we have.”

Ho­sein said the min­istry is await­ing a re­sponse from the Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion Min­istry to start a re­cruit­ment process for 40 more of­fi­cers and the PLS is al­so get­ting three new ve­hi­cles, in­clud­ing one next month. He es­ti­mat­ed that ad­di­tion­al staff might be ob­tained in a “cou­ple months as it’s a process, noth­ing hap­pens overnight in the pub­lic ser­vice.”

Asked whether the min­istry had done an au­dit of farm­ers’ loss­es to loot­ers, Kaz­im replied: “In light of that ques­tion I’d like to ap­peal to the pub­lic, when you want to do these loot­ing—an­i­mals and crops and so—plant your own crops and mind your own an­i­mals! Then we’ll know what we get­ting be­cause right now peo­ple tak­ing months and years to mind an an­i­mal and sell it, and tak­ing some time to plant these crops and they just com­ing and loot­ing it!

“I’m mak­ing an ap­peal to the pub­lic who do­ing these il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties, you want to steal an an­i­mal? Mind your own an­i­mals! You want to in­ter­fere with the peo­ple crops who take their time and months to plant? Plant your own be­cause every­body need to plant!” he added, speak­ing strong­ly.

“Is a time when food is very im­por­tant in T&T and all over the world, so plant your own crops and mind your own an­i­mals and leave the peo­ple stock alone!”

On whether the min­istry would con­sid­er com­pen­sat­ing farm­ers for loss­es, Ho­sein said he didn’t act alone and will con­sult with the per­ma­nent sec­re­tary and staff and “if the need aris­es we’ll look in­to it.”

He said the PLS has con­tact­ed farm­ers’ groups through­out T&T and is aware of af­fect­ed farm­ers and ar­eas where theft is oc­cur­ring.

“In this way, they can re­spond util­is­ing the sup­port sys­tems pre­vi­ous­ly men­tioned with the TTPS, TTMPS and EM­BD Po­lice. (GA)