JESSE RAMDEO

Se­nior Re­porter

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says a guard booth at Bam­boo Num­ber 2 should be built on the foun­da­tion of the law.

The fu­ture of the re­cent­ly erect­ed guard booth is on shaky ground as mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty now seek ap­proval from the Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion af­ter it has al­ready been built.  The Tu­na­puna Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion re­cent­ly is­sued a sev­en-day no­tice to de­mol­ish the struc­ture due to the ab­sence of the nec­es­sary ap­provals.

The Op­po­si­tion Leader main­tains that had com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers tak­en a dif­fer­ent ap­proach, the struc­ture, aimed at pro­vid­ing ad­di­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, would have a more sol­id foun­da­tion.

“We’re not liv­ing in the Wild Wild West that you de­cide you can just put up a booth,” the Op­po­si­tion Leader said.  “You have to do it in ac­cor­dance with th law.  You must fol­low the law and you will get through.”

Dur­ing the UNC's Mon­day Night Cot­tage Meet­ing in St Joseph, the Op­po­si­tion Leader said the area's Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Coun­cil­lor has ini­ti­at­ed the le­gal process which en­tails sev­er­al steps, in­clud­ing a pe­ti­tion sub­mit­ted to the Cor­po­ra­tion.

How­ev­er, in re­sponse to Per­sad-Bisses­sar's ad­vice, com­mu­ni­ty ac­tivist In­shan Ish­mael said the sys­tem is flawed.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, Ish­mael claimed the area's rep­re­sen­ta­tive had con­tin­ued to drop the ball and that res­i­dents could not de­lay the se­cu­ri­ty mea­sure.

“With the fail­ure of the Coun­cil­lor and the MP…  This is why we did what we did, be­cause we know that we can­not wait and we know that we can­not hold on, be­cause quite frankly every sin­gle week there is some in­ci­dent tak­ing place,” Ish­mael ar­gued.

“So, like most cit­i­zens in the coun­try, we feel un­safe in our homes and if the sys­tem worked for us and not against us, we would have hap­pi­ly done what was need­ed,” the com­mu­ni­ty ac­tivist said.

The Op­po­si­tion Leader ob­served that res­i­dents of the con­stituen­cy have de­clin­ing con­fi­dence in the po­lice's abil­i­ty to ar­rest the crime scourge.  She al­so agreed that com­mu­ni­ties must be able to guard against crim­i­nal el­e­ments:

“We to­tal­ly sup­port any com­mu­ni­ty which would like to be­come gat­ed,” she said, “and I urge all in­volved to work to­geth­er fol­low the rules and get your com­mu­ni­ty se­cured.”

The Op­po­si­tion Leader al­so ze­roed-in on why the St Joseph area has been on the crim­i­nals' radar.

“They use the banks of the Ca­roni, San Juan and St Joseph Rivers as trans­port routes to car­ry their il­le­gal con­tra­band in­to their strong­hold com­mu­ni­ties,” she stat­ed.

“The crim­i­nals con­tin­ue to de­stroy the flood pumps.  Why?  To wipe out farm­ers and get their farm­lands.  They then bring in their crim­i­nal friends to squat on these lands so they can pro­tect each oth­er,” she added.