RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

A fire broke out at St Pe­ter’s Pri­ma­ry School in Pointe-a-Pierre ear­ly Thurs­day morn­ing, de­stroy­ing the ad­min­is­tra­tion block that housed the prin­ci­pal’s of­fice and sev­er­al class­rooms.

Sources said the fire may have been ma­li­cious­ly set.

When Guardian Me­dia ar­rived on the scene, Min­is­ter of En­er­gy Ernesto Ke­sar said he did not want to speak pre­ma­ture­ly about the cause but gave as­sur­ances that work would be done to pre­pare the school be­fore the new term.

He con­firmed the blaze was con­fined to the ad­min­is­tra­tion build­ing.

“The fire was con­fined to the ad­min­is­tra­tive build­ing which hous­es the prin­ci­pal’s of­fice and about three of the fifth stan­dard class­rooms,” Ke­sar said.

He com­mend­ed the fire ser­vice for its swift re­sponse.

“The fire ser­vice was quick in their re­sponse, and they were able to take con­trol of the sit­u­a­tion be­fore it spread to any oth­er part of the school,” he ex­plained.

Ke­sar al­so raised ques­tions about the ab­sence of on-site se­cu­ri­ty since Petrotrin’s clo­sure in 2018.

“I would have asked im­me­di­ate­ly, where were the se­cu­ri­ty arrange­ments? To be told that since 2018 there was not any fixed se­cu­ri­ty arrange­ments. In the past, se­cu­ri­ty would not have been an is­sue here,” he said.

School prin­ci­pal Geor­gette Med­ford con­firmed that staff had se­cured the com­pound the day be­fore the fire. She said she had made re­peat­ed re­quests for bet­ter se­cu­ri­ty.

“As a prin­ci­pal, I have made re­peat­ed ap­peals for a guard­ed se­cu­ri­ty booth or fenc­ing around the school. None of these came to fruition,” she said.

Med­ford added that im­por­tant records and equip­ment were de­stroyed.

“All our cu­mu­la­tive record cards are lost. All staff ap­praisals are lost. All staff files are lost. Lap­tops, desk­tops, tele­vi­sion sets, re­frig­er­a­tors. But more so the doc­u­ments that would have been lost,” she said.

The school has about 360 stu­dents en­rolled, with ca­pac­i­ty for 400. Med­ford said three class­rooms used by fifth-year stu­dents were af­fect­ed.

Of­fi­cials from Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um and Paria Fu­el Trad­ing were present at the com­pound.

Chair­man of Guarara Re­fin­ery Com­pa­ny Gow­tam Ma­haraj said his team would al­so sup­port the school.

“It feels as our own has been lost here through this fire. We stand ready and com­mit­ted to pro­vide sup­port to the staff and prin­ci­pal,” he said.

Chair­man of the Her­itage board Kurt Ram­lal, who al­so vis­it­ed the site, said plans were be­ing con­sid­ered for tem­po­rary fa­cil­i­ties.

“We’re go­ing to work to­geth­er to see how fast we could put the ad­min build­ing back, prob­a­bly a tem­po­rary build­ing, so that the prin­ci­pal and staff could get back on track to re­open the school,” Ram­lal said.

He added that an of­fi­cial in­ves­ti­ga­tion is un­der­way and fire of­fi­cials are ex­pect­ed to re­lease a re­port with­in 48 hours.