Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Three new joint po­lice-mil­i­tary se­cu­ri­ty posts are be­ing wel­comed by To­bag­o­ni­ans, with Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine al­ready ad­vo­cat­ing for a fourth fa­cil­i­ty on the is­land.

Around 6.30 am yes­ter­day, the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) an­nounced the es­tab­lish­ment of se­cu­ri­ty posts in Ply­mouth, Sig­nal Hill and Good­wood. The ini­tia­tive forms part of a na­tion­wide roll­out of 30 se­cu­ri­ty posts and, ac­cord­ing to the THA, is in­tend­ed to strength­en the se­cu­ri­ty pres­ence in com­mu­ni­ties and im­prove po­lice re­sponse times. Al­though the THA said con­struc­tion would be­gin over the week­end, heavy equip­ment was al­ready be­ing mo­bilised at the Sig­nal Hill site yes­ter­day, al­most si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly with the re­lease of the an­nounce­ment.

The des­ig­nat­ed lo­ca­tion is sit­u­at­ed be­tween the Sig­nal Hill Recre­ation Ground and the com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre. Work­ers on-site told Guardian Me­dia the fa­cil­i­ty was ex­pect­ed to be com­plet­ed by the end of the day.

Speak­ing at a me­dia con­fer­ence on Wednes­day, Au­gus­tine re­it­er­at­ed his sup­port for the joint se­cu­ri­ty posts, not­ing that sim­i­lar arrange­ments had proven ef­fec­tive in re­duc­ing crime in the past, par­tic­u­lar­ly in Gold­en Lane.

“We want to see the po­lice of­fi­cers and mem­bers of the De­fence Force more fre­quent­ly,” Au­gus­tine said.

“We feel there is some­thing in the psy­chol­o­gy of se­cu­ri­ty about be­ing able to feel and see the pres­ence of those charged with the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of pro­tect­ing us and hav­ing them in com­mu­ni­ties. That means we are able to get a more time­ly re­sponse from them, hope­ful­ly. We don’t want them to sit down in posts and not work.”

As­sem­bly­man for Sig­nal Hill/Pa­tience Hill Nigel Taitt al­so wel­comed the ini­tia­tive, cit­ing con­cerns about ris­ing crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty in his elec­toral dis­trict de­spite the pres­ence of a near­by mil­i­tary base.

“Con­sul­ta­tion took place. They did reach out to me and told me about com­ing to Ply­mouth, Sig­nal Hill and Good­wood area,” Taitt said.

“I told them I would com­mit be­cause a lot of crime tak­ing place in my dis­trict. I wel­come any­thing to pre­vent crime in my dis­trict.”

A Sig­nal Hill res­i­dent pass­ing near the con­struc­tion site said she was pleased to learn that a se­cu­ri­ty post was be­ing es­tab­lished in the area.

“I think it is an ex­cel­lent ini­tia­tive, be­cause I have dance class every week and on­ly fe­males are there and it feels a bit un­safe,” she said.

She com­plained about young men loi­ter­ing near­by and the smell of mar­i­jua­na in the area.

“Some­times they bang the door of the com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre and then run away,” she added.

Shop­keep­er Pa­tri­cia No­ray, who said her busi­ness was bro­ken in­to sev­er­al months ago, be­lieves the added se­cu­ri­ty pres­ence will ben­e­fit the com­mu­ni­ty.

“It will ben­e­fit the peo­ple of Sig­nal Hill, be­cause there is too much crime go­ing on, and the el­der­ly are fed up with the crime sit­u­a­tion,” she said.

A CEPEP work­er, who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty, said com­mu­ni­ty life had changed over the years. De­scrib­ing the be­hav­iour of some youths as “hel­ter-skel­ter,” he ex­pressed hope that the fa­cil­i­ty would help im­prove con­di­tions in the vil­lage.

In Ply­mouth, res­i­dents al­so wel­comed the planned se­cu­ri­ty post, al­though some ques­tioned where it would be lo­cat­ed.

One ven­dor said ad­di­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty was need­ed fol­low­ing the brazen at­tempt­ed ATM heist in June, when five ban­dits used a stolen back­hoe and truck to break in­to an ATM and re­move its vault be­fore aban­don­ing the ex­er­cise when the hy­draulic de­vice they were us­ing mal­func­tioned. One per­son was lat­er ar­rest­ed in con­nec­tion with the in­ci­dent.

“It is a very good idea,” the ven­dor said.

“The en­vi­ron­ment al­ways la­bel as a hotspot, and even though it mightn’t cool every­thing down, it go con­trol it a lit­tle.”

She added that busi­ness ac­tiv­i­ty had slowed since the rob­bery and claimed some peo­ple re­mained hes­i­tant to vis­it the area.

Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment To­ba­go Coun­cil leader Sham­fa Cud­joe-Lewis, who re­sides in Ply­mouth, pre­vi­ous­ly told Guardian Me­dia that con­sul­ta­tions should take place with res­i­dents be­fore any se­cu­ri­ty post is es­tab­lished. Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Rod­hill Kirk, who rec­om­mend­ed Ply­mouth as a suit­able lo­ca­tion, had al­so said con­sul­ta­tions with stake­hold­ers would be con­duct­ed be­fore plans moved for­ward.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Kirk de­clined to com­ment on the roll­out of the fa­cil­i­ties in To­ba­go.

Ef­forts to reach Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der and Au­gus­tine for com­ment on the ra­tio­nale be­hind the se­lect­ed lo­ca­tions and the time­line for the fa­cil­i­ties to be­come op­er­a­tional were un­suc­cess­ful up to pub­li­ca­tion.