NEWSDAY JUNE 25, 2 K13 PM: Courts for Golden Grove prisons Tuesday, June 25 2013 PRIME Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar last night said Cabinet had agreed to the expenditure of $3.2 million to retrofit buildings at the Remand Yard section of the Golden Grove Prisons in Arouca, to facilitate among other things, provisions of magisterial court sittings. Speaking before a crowd of UNC supporters at the party’s Monday Night Forum at Munroe Road in Cunupia, Persad-Bissessar said the money will be used to retrofit 12 40-foot pre-engineered, pre-fabricated buildings, which she said, will improve prisoner safety and security at Remand Yard. “The buildings would provide eight courtrooms that would have all the necessary ancillary facilities to facilitate video conferencing between the Remand Prison and the Magistrates’ Courts. This investment would come from the budget allocation of the Ministry of Justice and NIPDEC (the National Insurance Property Development Company Limited) would be handling the project,” Persad-Bissessar said. She told the gathering that this initiative would reduce security risks involved in Prisoner Transport and cuts down on cost. “The records show that Prisoner Transport and other services provided to the Ministry of National Security from 2002 to 2009 cost the State more than $98 million. The cost rose dramatically from a low of $6.4 million in 2002 to $23.4 million in 2009. And in addition, it would make the system more efficient and cut back on delays in dealing with cases before the courts,” Persad-Bissessar said. The Prime Minister’s announcement comes in the wake of a Remand Yard prisoner Aimard Lima, being beaten to death while in a prison cell with several other prisoners. Homicide Investigations Bureau detectives are continuing investigations. Persad-Bissessar later congratulated police for their work on the weekend in cracking down on a diesel smuggling racket at Sea Lots. She said this was an illegal operation involving 20,000 gallons of fuel bought for $1.50 per litre. “Fuel is subsidised by Government for the benefit of the people. I am advised that this one shipment of 20,000 gallons of diesel is worth nearly $800,000 on the black market. The diesel smuggling racket is widespread and police have been quietly going after the persons involved. “From 2011 to 2012 we have seen a 14 percent reduction in the sale of subsidised diesel. This 14 percent constitutes 89 million litres of diesel that would have otherwise been syphoned away. That is an estimated savings of TT$377 million in subsidy in 2012,” Persad-Bissessar said. This illegal trade, she said, involves buying at the subsidized price and selling at a huge profit to vessels passing through our waters. Some of these illegal operators are actually shipping out diesel to overseas locations, she said. The Prime Minister then gave the crowd a reminder of all of the national development projects undertaken by the People’s Partnership within the past four years even as she revealed that the PNM plans to scrap the Ministry of the People if it returns to power in the 2015 General Election. “No government has ever focused so clearly on the need for the services that this ministry provides. In January last year, the leader of the PNM told supporters when their party takes office it would scrap the Ministry of the People. Dr Keith Rowley said it in a public meeting. All these benefits you have from this Ministry would vanish if Heaven forbid the PNM gets back in office.” “Dr Rowley has said he would establish a Ministry of Rural Development because ‘logistically’ rural communities are always left behind. Well that is the PNM way. We inherited rural neglect of the worst kind and today after just three years if you look around you in any part of the country you would see the amazing amount of development. “We don’t need a Ministry for Rural Development because all our ministries are involved in development. We don’t discriminate between urban and rural. It’s called national development,” she said as she outlined some projects including the Debe campus of the UWI, Hospitals in Couva, Arima, Point Fortin and Penal; a Nursing Programme at El Dorado; Work Force Assessment Centres; the Point Fortin to San Fernando Highway and increased old age pensions. spacer
Posted on: Tue, 25 Jun 2013 07:23:36 +0000
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