Of the 1,796 closed-cir­cuit tele­vi­sion (CCTV) cam­eras in­stalled through­out T&T, 733 are not ful­ly func­tion­al or are non-func­tion­al,

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds said in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day. Re­ply­ing to queries from UNC MP Kadi­jah Ameen, Hinds said as at Feb­ru­ary 28, 2022, there were 1,796 CCTV cam­eras in­stalled through­out T&T.

“Of this num­ber, 1,063 were ful­ly func­tion­al, with 733 con­sid­ered to be ei­ther not ful­ly func­tion­al or non-func­tion­al.”

Hinds said there were plans to in­stall ad­di­tion­al cam­eras but was un­able to say what dates the 733 would be fixed. He added that cam­eras are re­paired on a rou­tine ba­sis and made func­tion­al.

He was al­so un­able to say if the 733 cam­eras were in hotspot ar­eas. He said it de­pend­ed on what was con­sid­ered a hotspot, quip­ping—but be­ing made to with­draw his re­mark—that the UNC bench might be con­sid­ered a con­glom­er­a­tion of that.

He said Ameen’s ques­tion was “so ba­nal and ir­ri­tat­ing”, to which she asked if he’d with­draw that al­so, as he was “ba­nal and ir­ri­tat­ing.”

House Speak­er Bridgid An­nisette George had to de­mand “Or­der!”

Hinds al­so re­spond­ed on whether there are plans to in­stall CCTV cam­eras at the Heights of Aripo, where the bod­ies of mur­der vic­tims have been found.

He said, “Ac­cord­ing to in­for­ma­tion from the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er, in or­der for CCTV cam­eras to be in­stalled at the Heights of Aripo, care­ful con­sid­er­a­tion must be giv­en to the site com­pat­i­bil­i­ty, in­clud­ing the avail­abil­i­ty of elec­tric­i­ty sup­ply and the con­nec­tiv­i­ty chal­lenges at this re­mote lo­ca­tion.

“In fact, con­sid­er­a­tion must be giv­en to these is­sues as re­gards a pos­si­ble ex­pan­sion of the CCTV net­work through­out the coun­try at large, in­clud­ing at Aripo Heights. To this end, dis­cus­sions with stake­hold­ers are cur­rent­ly un­der­way.”

UNC MP Sad­dam Ho­sein asked who the stake­hold­ers were.

En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young, re­marked, “Ask (PDP leader Wat­son) Duke.”

Hinds said stake­hold­ers would be the TTPS, in­tel­li­gence gath­er­ing agen­cies, po­ten­tial ser­vice providers and ex­perts “...None of which ex­ists on your side.”

An­nisette -George asked him to de­sist from his in­nu­en­does.

Pol­i­cy draft on PH cars law with AG

A pol­i­cy draft doc­u­ment on the reg­u­la­tion of PH taxis is be­ing re­viewed by the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and will be giv­en to Cab­i­net.

House Leader Ter­rence Deyals­ingh in­di­cat­ed this yes­ter­day, con­firm­ing Gov­ern­ment is ac­tive­ly pur­su­ing a pol­i­cy aimed at reg­u­lat­ing PH taxis. He said the draft pol­i­cy doc­u­ment ma­te­ri­alised af­ter talks on the is­sue last year.

He said the im­po­si­tion of any reg­u­lat­ed mea­sures will be giv­en with con­sid­er­a­tion to com­muters’ needs. He said the Works Min­istry had iden­ti­fied sev­er­al is­sues with the PH sec­tor. This in­clud­ed in­sur­ance cov­er­age for pas­sen­gers, pub­lic safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty, the Mo­tor Ve­hi­cle/Road traf­fic law and per­ceived un­fair treat­ment of li­censed taxi dri­vers.

$2.4m earned from Taste of Car­ni­val

Tourism Min­is­ter Ran­dall Mitchell said yes­ter­day that the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion gen­er­at­ed $2.4 mil­lion from the Taste of Car­ni­val.

Re­ply­ing to Op­po­si­tion queries, he added that per­for­mance spaces un­der the Min­istry of Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts, name­ly the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts—North and South, Na­pari­ma Bowl and Queen’s Hall, al­so earned $317, 735.25 from the host­ing of events at the per­mit­ted spaces.

“And I am hap­py to re­port that not on­ly was the Taste of Car­ni­val a suc­cess but 25 days fol­low­ing the host­ing of the Car­ni­val events, there has been no sig­nif­i­cant spike in COVID-19 or dis­rup­tion to our health ser­vices,” he al­so said, de­tail­ing the events and stake­hold­ers in­volved in the thrust.

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