Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

Amidst con­cerns over crime, Ari­ma May­or Bal­li­ram Ma­haraj says he in­tends to work to­wards en­hanc­ing safe­ty and dig­i­tal con­nec­tiv­i­ty in the bor­ough.

Ma­haraj, 82, is the chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of the Ari­ma Dis­count Mart and for­mer chair­man of the Ari­ma Busi­ness As­so­ci­a­tion.

He was an­nounced as the new Ari­ma May­or in Au­gust, suc­ceed­ing Cagney Casimire, who was ap­point­ed in 2020.

Speak­ing dur­ing his swear­ing-in cer­e­mo­ny at the Mal­abar Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre on Mon­day, Ma­haraj said he will push to­wards en­hanc­ing the qual­i­ty of life for all res­i­dents and vis­i­tors to the bor­ough.

Re­fer­ring to the Ari­ma Con­nect project which was ini­ti­at­ed by the In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank (IDB), Ma­haraj said it was his hope that Ari­ma could be­come T&T’s first “smart” city.

He added that such an ini­tia­tive could have ben­e­fits in crime-fight­ing by max­imis­ing cov­er­age and sur­veil­lance through CCTV cam­eras.

“The project in­cludes pro­vid­ing free Wi-Fi in the Ari­ma Hos­pi­tal, high schools, po­lice sta­tions and oth­er high traf­fic ar­eas to en­hance dig­i­tal con­nec­tiv­i­ty and ur­ban re­new­al,” Ma­haraj said.

“There will be cam­eras, po­lice through­out the bor­ough with mon­i­tors 24/7. Tell them crim­i­nals, cam­eras placed by every pole. Smart poles, you’ll hear that be­fore the end of the year.”

Ma­haraj said he an­tic­i­pat­ed that 50 per cent of the pro­gramme will be com­plet­ed be­fore the end of 2023.

He said en­sur­ing safe­ty in the bor­ough was par­tic­u­lar­ly cru­cial in his role as may­or and as­sured his com­mit­ment to restor­ing a sense of se­cu­ri­ty in Ari­ma.

“Above all, let us join hands and work to­geth­er to make Ari­ma the safest bor­ough in Trinidad and To­ba­go so we can walk the streets freely and safe­ly again.”

Ma­haraj said he al­so in­tends to lob­by for more gov­ern­ment min­istries and agen­cies to open of­fices in Ari­ma to im­prove ac­cess to all.

He al­so in­tends to work to­wards pre­serv­ing Ari­ma’s his­to­ry and cul­tur­al iden­ti­ty through a des­ig­nat­ed space for parang.

Not­ing his own cul­tur­al back­ground and up­bring­ing, Ma­haraj said his ap­point­ment as may­or was proof that T&T was tru­ly an in­clu­sive, mul­ti-cul­tur­al na­tion which placed shared val­ues over dif­fer­ences.

“I was born in Ari­ma Hos­pi­tal in 1942. I’m a proud Tri­ni and the son of hum­ble, hard-work­ing Hin­du par­ents.

“Thanks to my faith and up­bring­ing, which has giv­en me the knowl­edge to think, to med­i­tate on is­sues be­fore mak­ing de­ci­sions. So, with much re­flec­tion I am ready to serve.

“We must nev­er for­get the sac­ri­fices made by our an­ces­tors so that we can be here to­day.”

Re­spond­ing to ear­li­er re­marks from for­mer may­or Cagney Casimire, Ma­haraj said he had no in­ten­tion of scrap­ping or dis­con­tin­u­ing sched­uled in­fra­struc­tur­al projects and would push for their time­ly com­ple­tion, while al­so for­mu­lat­ing new ideas.

“This may­or will not press but­tons and go back­wards, we will take what you did and do every­thing you said.”

He al­so said that lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form was nec­es­sary to the con­tin­ued de­vel­op­ment of Ari­ma and its peo­ple.

Dur­ing his fi­nal ad­dress as may­or, Casimire out­lined sev­er­al sched­uled works and called on the Ma­haraj and the in­com­ing coun­cil to en­vi­sion a bet­ter fu­ture for Ari­ma.

Re­fer­ring to the van­dal­ism of a sign in the com­mu­ni­ty, Casimire said he chose to leave the van­dalised sign up as proof of the chal­lenges fac­ing se­cu­ri­ty.

“We need more fund­ing for se­cu­ri­ty,” he al­so said.