Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der has de­fend­ed the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to re­tain the ex­ist­ing San Juan Fire Sta­tion rather than in­vest in a new fa­cil­i­ty, de­spite re­newed calls from the San Juan Busi­ness As­so­ci­a­tion (SJ­BA) for a mod­ern sta­tion to serve the ex­pand­ing com­mer­cial dis­trict.

Speak­ing at the sta­tion’s re­open­ing, Alexan­der said the Gov­ern­ment want­ed to avoid un­nec­es­sary ex­pen­di­ture while en­sur­ing fire­fight­ers could re­spond quick­ly to emer­gen­cies.

“Lis­ten, we try to avoid build­ing new things un­nec­es­sar­i­ly,” Alexan­der said.

He said the ex­ist­ing fa­cil­i­ty had served the dis­trict for decades and could con­tin­ue to do so with im­prove­ments.

“This has been serv­ing this com­mu­ni­ty for a num­ber of years, and we want it to con­tin­ue,” he said.

Alexan­der said the Gov­ern­ment planned to cre­ate an ad­di­tion­al ex­it at the rear of the com­pound, giv­ing fire ap­pli­ances di­rect ac­cess to the Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route and re­duc­ing de­lays caused by traf­fic con­ges­tion along the East­ern Main Road.

“So, what we’ll do, the on­ly dif­fer­ence we’ll make, we’ll open up the back,” he said.

He said the pro­posed mod­i­fi­ca­tion would al­low the trucks to move on the Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route at short no­tice.

Alexan­der said build­ing an­oth­er fa­cil­i­ty would mean ad­di­tion­al ex­pen­di­ture when an es­tab­lished sta­tion was al­ready avail­able.

“But oth­er than that, we didn’t want to fur­ther ex­pense our­selves with the ac­com­mo­da­tions al­ready oc­cu­pied here,” he said.

His po­si­tion con­trasts with the SJ­BA’s long­stand­ing cam­paign for the sta­tion’s re­lo­ca­tion. The as­so­ci­a­tion has re­peat­ed­ly raised con­cerns about its lo­ca­tion at the con­gest­ed San Juan Croisée.

In May, as­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Abrahim Ali pro­posed rais­ing $10 mil­lion through the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty to fund a new sta­tion, pro­vid­ed the Gov­ern­ment made suit­able land avail­able.

The as­so­ci­a­tion iden­ti­fied a site near the in­ter­sec­tion of the Uri­ah But­ler High­way and the Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route, for­mer­ly oc­cu­pied by the Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gramme, as a pos­si­ble al­ter­na­tive.

Ali said re­lo­cat­ing the sta­tion would im­prove emer­gency re­sponse across San Juan, Barataria, Aranguez and El So­cor­ro.

The pro­pos­al fol­lowed more than two decades of calls to re­lo­cate the sta­tion. The as­so­ci­a­tion had pre­vi­ous­ly warned against spend­ing pub­lic funds on re­peat­ed re­pairs.

Ali wel­comed the re­open­ing but main­tained that a mod­ern fa­cil­i­ty was still need­ed.

“If you look at the com­mu­ni­ty that this sta­tion is asked to ser­vice, it’s huge,” he said.

He said the sta­tion served com­mu­ni­ties be­yond San Juan and Barataria, ex­tend­ing in­to St Joseph and San­ta Cruz, plac­ing con­sid­er­able de­mands on emer­gency ser­vices.

“We con­tin­ue to make the call to have a new sta­tion built, and we are con­tin­u­ing to pledge our sup­port for the Gov­ern­ment to play its part in get­ting that sta­tion,” he said.

Barataria/San Juan MP Sad­dam Ho­sein de­scribed the re­open­ing as an im­por­tant achieve­ment. He re­called vis­it­ing the fa­cil­i­ty on June 10, 2025, af­ter learn­ing it was clos­ing.

Ho­sein said he im­me­di­ate­ly con­tact­ed Alexan­der to re­quest his in­ter­ven­tion.

“I re­mem­ber the hor­ror that I saw when I came in­to the sta­tion on the 10th of June,” Ho­sein said.

“It was dirty. It was di­lap­i­dat­ed. It was un­fit for hu­man habi­ta­tion. Un­fit.”

He said fire­fight­ers de­served safe work­ing con­di­tions, giv­en the dan­gers of their work.

Ho­sein wel­comed the re­fur­bish­ment, which in­clud­ed paint­ing, clean­ing and ven­ti­la­tion im­prove­ments, but agreed that ac­cess for emer­gency ve­hi­cles re­mained a con­cern.

“We have re­ceived com­plaints with re­spect to ac­cess points for the fire sta­tion here, and the work is not over,” he said.

He sup­port­ed the pro­posed rear ex­it on­to the Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route, say­ing it could im­prove ac­cess to neigh­bour­ing com­mu­ni­ties.

Ho­sein al­so warned of the risks posed by the con­cen­tra­tion of com­mer­cial build­ings in cen­tral San Juan.

“Just look around here. Look at how many busi­ness­es we have right in the Croisée,” he said.

“One fire, and you can un­der­stand the dif­fi­cul­ty that some per­sons might face right in this very area.”

Ali dis­missed sug­ges­tions that he was up­set about not be­ing in­vit­ed to speak at the re­open­ing cer­e­mo­ny.

“I am not both­ered about if I’m called to speak or not,” he said, em­pha­sis­ing his re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to ad­vo­cate for busi­ness­es and res­i­dents.

He pledged to con­tin­ue work­ing with the Gov­ern­ment and elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

The ren­o­va­tion cost more than $1 mil­lion.