Shas­tri Boodan

Free­lance Con­trib­u­tor

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath says dis­cus­sions are un­der­way for the es­tab­lish­ment of a po­lice post in his Cou­va South con­stituen­cy, with the Car­li Bay area among the lo­ca­tions be­ing con­sid­ered.

Not­ing that his Cou­va South con­stituen­cy bor­ders both Cou­va North and Ca­roni Cen­tral, he said he was in dis­cus­sions with the Min­is­ters of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty and De­fence on a pos­si­ble lo­ca­tion, with con­sid­er­a­tion be­ing giv­en to ar­eas used as ac­cess points by crim­i­nal el­e­ments.

Padarath said the Car­li Bay area was of par­tic­u­lar con­cern be­cause of re­ports of gang ac­tiv­i­ty and pira­cy.

“I know Min­is­ter John has been speak­ing about the Car­li Bay area in par­tic­u­lar, where you have the in­fil­tra­tion of gangs, but you al­so have the in­fil­tra­tion of pi­rates, etc.,” he said.

He point­ed to the re­cent killing of sev­en fish­er­men at sea as fur­ther ev­i­dence of the se­cu­ri­ty chal­lenges fac­ing coastal com­mu­ni­ties.

“Hav­ing had the sit­u­a­tion with sev­en fish­er­men hav­ing been killed out at sea and so on, those dis­cus­sions are tak­ing place, not in si­los, but among min­is­ters, and we will make those an­nounce­ments with­in short or­der,” Padarath said.

He said Cou­va South and Cou­va North are high­ly in­dus­tri­alised con­stituen­cies, with the area al­so hav­ing im­por­tant mar­itime ac­cess points.

“These are things that we are tak­ing in­to con­sid­er­a­tion right now, where it will have the most amount of im­pact,” he said.

Padarath al­so wel­comed the vis­it by Unit­ed States Deputy Sec­re­tary of State Christo­pher Lan­dau to the Ex­change Shiv Mandir, say­ing the US gov­ern­ment had pro­vid­ed fi­nan­cial sup­port for restora­tion work and archival projects at the her­itage site.

“Most re­cent­ly, the Unit­ed States gov­ern­ment pro­vid­ed some sup­port to the Shiv Mandir here in the con­stituen­cy of Cou­va South. They have been do­ing some restora­tion work, as well as some archives,” he said.

Padarath said the project formed part of an Amer­i­can Em­bassy out­reach pro­gramme in­volv­ing sup­port for her­itage sites and com­mu­ni­ties in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“So, this re­al­ly was an in­vest­ment in cul­ture of Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he said.

He said the project was iden­ti­fied by the US gov­ern­ment and un­der­tak­en in part­ner­ship with lo­cal stake­hold­ers.

“The project has ac­tu­al­ly been com­plet­ed, and now they are look­ing for oth­er ways in which they can part­ner,” Padarath said.

He said Lan­dau’s vis­it to the tem­ple was re­quest­ed by the US gov­ern­ment to see the work it had sup­port­ed.

He said sev­er­al projects had al­ready been dis­cussed fol­low­ing the Prime Min­is­ter’s vis­it to Wash­ing­ton last year, where she met US Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio on the side­lines of the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly.

Lan­dau al­so vis­it­ed the Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Es­tate with sev­er­al Gov­ern­ment min­is­ters, where fur­ther ar­eas of po­ten­tial US in­vest­ment and co­op­er­a­tion were be­ing dis­cussed.