RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

An undis­closed quan­ti­ty of equip­ment has gone miss­ing from the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion’s Carib Street Com­plex in San Fer­nan­do, from where the Cor­po­ra­tion ex­e­cutes the main­te­nance and waste­water ser­vices for the city.

The dis­ap­pear­ance has raised fresh con­cerns about sys­temic laps­es in the pro­tec­tion of State as­sets.

A source claimed that the equip­ment went miss­ing more than two months ago, prompt­ing ques­tions about de­layed re­port­ing and in­ter­nal over­sight.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Al­der­man Vil­liana Ra­moutars­ingh said she was alarmed that Coun­cil mem­bers were not for­mal­ly no­ti­fied of the miss­ing equip­ment and in­stead learned of it through un­of­fi­cial chan­nels.

“I am deeply con­cerned by re­ports that equip­ment is now miss­ing from the Carib Street of­fice. It is whol­ly un­ac­cept­able that Coun­cil mem­bers were not for­mal­ly in­formed of such a se­ri­ous mat­ter and in­stead had to learn of it through the grapevine,” she said.

Ra­moutars­ingh said when she sought de­tails from the ad­min­is­tra­tion, she was told a full re­port was still be­ing com­piled.

“This newest de­vel­op­ment is ex­treme­ly trou­bling and rais­es se­ri­ous ques­tions about the lev­el of due dili­gence, in­ter­nal con­trols, and the ef­fec­tive­ness of ex­ist­ing se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures at the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion,” she said.

She called for an ur­gent and com­pre­hen­sive re­port de­tail­ing the items miss­ing, the time­line of events, se­cu­ri­ty pro­to­cols in place, any breach­es iden­ti­fied, and cor­rec­tive ac­tions be­ing im­ple­ment­ed.

“The pro­tec­tion of pub­lic re­sources is a fun­da­men­tal re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. This sit­u­a­tion must be treat­ed with the se­ri­ous­ness it war­rants,” she added.

The rev­e­la­tion comes af­ter the killing of mu­nic­i­pal po­lice of­fi­cer WPC Anus­ka Ever­s­ley on April 19, who was stran­gled and beat­en to death. Firearms and am­mu­ni­tion from the Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Head­quar­ters in San Fer­nan­do were stolen, and three peo­ple, in­clud­ing her col­league Ji­van Coop­er, a 28-year-old mu­nic­i­pal po­lice con­sta­ble, were for­mal­ly charged and are now fac­ing the court.

When con­tact­ed, San Fer­nan­do May­or Robert Par­ris con­firmed to Guardian Me­dia that the mat­ter had been raised at the Coun­cil lev­el. He said it was on­ly two weeks ago that the CEO was in­formed, not­ing that it is cur­rent­ly un­der in­ter­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion. Asked what ex­act­ly went miss­ing, Par­ris de­clined to pro­vide de­tails, again say­ing the mat­ter is un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

“I have ab­solute­ly no com­ment on this,” Par­ris said, but he cau­tioned against link­ing the miss­ing equip­ment to the mur­der and firearms in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

He not­ed that such in­ci­dents, while con­cern­ing, have oc­curred un­der past may­ors and warned against what he de­scribed as at­tempts to “mag­ni­fy” is­sues in the cur­rent cli­mate.

“I have to be re­spon­si­ble,” he added, say­ing es­tab­lished pro­ce­dures are be­ing fol­lowed.

Mean­while, As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice in charge of the Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Wayne Mys­tar con­firmed that the Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice are work­ing with the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) as part of in­ter-agency co­op­er­a­tion.

Mys­tar said he met with city of­fi­cials ear­li­er this week and re­ceived in­for­ma­tion on sev­er­al mat­ters, but de­clined to dis­close de­tails, cit­ing con­fi­den­tial­i­ty.

A se­nior SFCC source claimed the equip­ment had been miss­ing for ap­prox­i­mate­ly two months, but of­fi­cials on­ly be­came aware of the is­sue about two weeks ago, trig­ger­ing the cur­rent in­ves­ti­ga­tion. The source al­so claimed that no re­port was lodged at the TTPS be­cause that was not the pro­ce­dure.