JESSE RAMDEO
Se­nior Re­porter

The Di­rec­tor of one group ad­vo­cat­ing for the re­spon­si­ble use of fire­works has la­belled the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al's re­cent up­date on its leg­is­la­tion as "hog­wash".

Co­or­di­na­tor of Fire­works Coali­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (FACTT), Roger Mar­shall, con­tends that a year and a half af­ter gov­ern­ment ini­tial­ly sig­nalled its in­ten­tion to act on fire­works use in T&T, it is nowhere clos­er.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia on Fri­day, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour not­ed that a Cab­i­net Note is cur­rent­ly be­fore a Cab­i­net Sub-Com­mit­tee.

"The com­po­si­tion of the com­mit­tee has been es­tab­lished to re­flect Gov­ern­ment’s mul­ti­pronged du­ty to en­sure the safe­ty of per­sons and prop­er­ty, the pro­tec­tion of the en­vi­ron­ment and to con­duct a bal­anc­ing ex­er­cise be­tween its en­ter­tain­ment val­ue and the rights and in­ter­ests of those ad­verse­ly af­fect­ed by fire­works," the AG told Guardian Me­dia.

AG Ar­mour said the com­mit­tee is tasked with im­ple­ment­ing gov­ern­ment's pol­i­cy on the use of fire­works by the pub­lic.

"This com­mit­tee aims to ac­tu­al­ize gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy by tak­ing leg­isla­tive mea­sures to reg­u­late the pri­ma­ry com­po­nents of the fire­works in­dus­try—that is, the im­port, stor­age, trans­port, pack­ag­ing, sale, han­dling and pos­ses­sion, and use of fire­works,” he ex­plained.

He added: “This pol­i­cy has been for­mu­lat­ed fol­low­ing ex­ten­sive con­sul­ta­tions with stake­hold­ers and the gen­er­al pub­lic and is in­tend­ed to put an end to the un­reg­u­lat­ed, ir­re­spon­si­ble, and in­con­sid­er­ate use of fire­works."

How­ev­er, dur­ing an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia on Fri­day, FACTT’s Roger Mar­shall ques­tioned the time­line for the roll out of leg­is­la­tion.

"Why all these de­lays?  Why do cit­i­zens have to go on hurt­ing?  Why does the AG not re­spond un­til he is put un­der ex­treme pres­sure?  That's my fear; that's my con­cern,” Mar­shall stat­ed.  “It just sounds like hog­wash com­ing out of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al's Of­fice and it won't be the first time. We are of­ten mis­led by in­for­ma­tion they give us."

The FACTT spokesman al­so not­ed that stronger in­ter­im mea­sures should have been put in place un­til the law is passed.

"Peo­ple have suf­fered for too long and peo­ple are left to con­tin­ue to suf­fer,” he said.  “I be­lieve that un­der the Sum­ma­ry Of­fences Act that ei­ther the Min­is­ter or Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice has the au­thor­i­ty to make tem­po­rary mea­sures, be it by iden­ti­fy­ing lo­ca­tions, or per­mits or what have you.  So, there are things that can be done in the mean­time to pro­tect the pop­u­la­tion.”

Mar­shall added: “They moved with haste when it came to the scrap met­al in­dus­try.  Why for fire­works is it a dif­fer­ent sto­ry?"

Last year, for­mer At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi an­nounced that a bill and pol­i­cy pa­per were draft­ed to ad­dress the man­age­ment and le­gal­i­ty of fire­works.

Since then, there has been pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion on the pro­posed law that will gov­ern the types of fire­works that can be used and the zones where they can be dis­charged. The pol­i­cy al­so stip­u­lat­ed that a per­mit would be nec­es­sary when us­ing the py­rotech­nic.