RHON­DOR DOWLAT

Af­ter four hours locked in a meet­ing with the Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, T&T Fire Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tion (TTF­SA) mem­bers left un­hap­py and may now de­cide to down tools af­ter get­ting no as­sur­ances of an im­me­di­ate res­o­lu­tion to their is­sues.

Speak­ing to the Guardian Me­dia af­ter­wards, TTF­SA pres­i­dent Leo Ramkissoon de­scribed the meet­ing as “cor­dial.”

“I would have in­di­cat­ed clear­ly to the Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary and the Chief Fire Of­fi­cer that every day that pass­es, every fire call and every re­sponse that pass­es, and the of­fi­cers whom we rep­re­sent have to go out and face those risks with­out the best or even ap­pro­pri­ate mea­sure of per­son­al pro­tec­tive equip­ment or fire trucks, is re­al­ly an in­dict­ment on the over­all man­age­ment of the ser­vice and it places the of­fi­cers in a po­si­tion that we can­not say that we are com­fort­able with at all,” he said.

“So, we are cer­tain­ly not leav­ing here to­day say­ing that we are com­fort­ed but we are say­ing that the dis­cus­sions I think would have led to some com­mit­ments that we are re­al­ly re­spon­si­ble for en­sur­ing that we fol­low up with them on and we would be al­so look­ing for­ward.”

Ramkissoon said while they were told fire trucks will be pur­chased soon, they were al­so told parts will be or­dered to re­pair ap­pli­ances cur­rent­ly down pend­ing me­chan­i­cal works.

“So, it’s parts that they would be or­der­ing to fix the trucks that are down. So, we are look­ing at the end of May, June and with pur­chas­ing trucks, ac­quir­ing an ap­pli­ance takes many months go­ing in­to years for the or­der­ing process, so again, I can’t leave here hap­py. I can’t leave here say­ing that we are sat­is­fied,” Ramkissoon said.

“All we know is that they have been shak­en up by the sit­u­a­tion and I hope that the pow­ers that be, be­ing the Cab­i­net, recog­nise this very very con­cern­ing ..., this very se­ri­ous sit­u­a­tion.”

He said they asked the PS what can be done as the of­fi­cers are at risk.

“We made it clear to the Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary, fire of­fi­cers, un­der the cur­rent risk that they face, has every right un­der the Sec­tion 14 and 15 of the OSH Act to refuse to re­spond and every day, every time that they re­spond in these cir­cum­stances, they are, in fact, plac­ing their life and limb in se­ri­ous risk, so they are re­al­ly giv­ing up a re­al im­por­tant por­tion of their life in or­der to per­form the du­ties for the pub­lic and they do­ing it in many in­stances at their own ex­pense; of­fi­cers are spend­ing out of their own pock­et to do this job.”

He claimed the Fire Ser­vice is at two-thirds func­tion­ing ca­pac­i­ty, as there are on­ly four re­sponse sta­tions in the North and one in the South.

“Bear in mind that two-thirds is se­vere­ly ham­pered by the lack of breath­ing ap­pa­ra­tus sets and de­fec­tive trucks and miss­ing oth­er equip­ment and hav­ing to ex­pend monies out of their own pock­ets to keep the ser­vice run­ning in the in­ter­est of the pub­lic.”

Ramkissoon said the ex­ec­u­tive will now re­port to the mem­ber­ship. How­ev­er, he con­ced­ed they would not have good news for them.

“We will try to con­vey the in­for­ma­tion as best as pos­si­ble and they will have to de­cide how we op­er­ate. I am say­ing to you that it is not be­yond fire of­fi­cers at this stage, in keep­ing with the law, law­ful­ly, to down tools, be­cause the sit­u­a­tion is un­ten­able,” he said.

“We can­not, in all fair­ness and all hon­esty, go to our mem­bers and call on them in any re­al way to dis­re­gard their own safe­ty and their own health, ig­nore that, as if it is not a fac­tor that must be con­sid­ered. We can’t ig­nore that. I can­not say that we leave the meet­ing sat­is­fied be­cause the sit­u­a­tion has not been re­solved and this sit­u­a­tion calls for im­me­di­ate res­o­lu­tion.”

Ramkissoon al­so ap­pealed to the pub­lic to be cog­nisant that the coun­try is in the midst of the bush­fire sea­son and re­mind­ed them that it is an of­fence to light fires with­out a per­mit.

Asked about al­le­ga­tions that fire of­fi­cers were “mash­ing up” ve­hi­cles, Ramkissoon said that is not the case be­cause if it were, of­fi­cers can be dis­ci­plined and the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty can be placed on them.

“There are no of­fi­cers be­ing dis­ci­plined for that at this point. In fact, I think it is ex­cus­es be­ing made for fail­ure be­cause I don’t think that the hus­band and fa­ther of that woman and child want to hear that of­fi­cers mis­han­dling ve­hi­cles. The fact is Siparia had no fire truck,” he said in ref­er­ence to the death of Kem­ba Mor­ris and her daugh­ter Za­ya in a fire on Sun­day.

Asked about Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds’ claim that a fire truck had been pur­chased and would be here in un­der a month, Ramkissoon said: “I don’t know if that is true be­cause on one hand, the Chief say­ing ad­ver­tise­ments will go out for the ten­der­ing of the fire trucks and then Hinds say­ing one pur­chased and on its way, so I don’t know which is the truth.”

In a Face­book post yes­ter­day, Hinds said the meet­ing was called to ven­ti­late the as­so­ci­a­tion’s dis­gruntle­ment.

Hinds said, “Let it be known that this meet­ing was planned and sched­uled some three weeks ago! It is a rou­tine tri­par­tite meet­ing be­tween the PS, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty; the Chief Fire Of­fi­cer (his ad­min­is­tra­tion) and the As­so­ci­a­tion. I re-es­tab­lished that meet­ing some months ago, to treat rou­tine­ly with is­sues af­fect­ing the Fire Ser­vice. They meet to­day was pre-planned and I wish them the usu­al suc­cess­ful and pro­duc­tive meet­ing.”

Chief Fire Of­fi­cer Arnold Bris­to left the min­istry with­out ad­dress­ing the me­dia. Nei­ther Hinds nor Bris­to an­swered their cell­phones when Guardian Me­dia sought com­ment on Ramkissoon’s con­cerns fol­low­ing the meet­ing.