HIMSELF PROBING HIMSELF

UNDER the leadership of Roosevelt Bruce, the Trinidad and Tobago Fire Services fell into a historic state of disrepair and abandonment.

Now, Bruce is chairing a committee to determine what led to the deaths by fire of Government Minister Lisa Morris-Julian and her two children.

Objective observers are calling the Bruce-led committee a wasted exercise aimed only at placing public outrage into cold storage.

They say the enquiry is a case of himself probing himself.

They do not expect the investigation to result in any essential change to the under-resourced Fire Services.

Bruce retired from the service in March 2019 after a lengthy career in which he became Chief Fire Officer.

During his tenure, the shortage of fire tenders and appropriate gear got to a critical level, leading to regular expressions of frustration from the Fire Officers Association.

Fire fighters said their operations were badly hampered as a result of the reduced annual budget allocations.

They were unable to respond effectively to blazes that took precious lives and destroyed homes, administrative buildings and factories.

Several people perished while fire officers remained hamstrung by a lack of appliances and other equipment.

In some instances, this was compounded with insufficient flow of water.

The Point Fortin Fire Station was so dilapidated that the Occupational Safety and Health Authority (OSHA) served Bruce with a prohibition order.

Several other stations were in a state of disrepair.

The association claimed that only five of the 11 stations in the Northern Division were fully operational.

The stations at Woodbrook, Santa Cruz, Belmont, Arima, Chaguaramas and Morvant did not have fire trucks, according to then-president of the association, Leo Ramkissoon.

There were defective trucks at other stations, Ramkisson said then, and that could hamper response time.

There are 44 fire stations in the country, with all lacking adequate equipment, the representative body said.

At one point, there were reports of 50 working appliances in a fleet of about 100.

At some stations, including Penal and Mayaro, there were no appliances for several months, the officers said then.

Repairs and maintenance were affected by the slow disbursement of funds.

At one time, the Fire Services owed fuel supplier Unipet some $500,000.

Officers had also accused Bruce of not handling officers’ promotions in a timely manner, unlike what took place in other arms of the protective services.

Bruce retired amid mounting woes, although much of the problems stemmed from reduced budgetary allocations and tardy payouts.

The enquiry into the deaths of Morris-Julian and her children would necessarily consider the issues of the availability and quality of equipment and water supply.

Bruce would be familiar with those problems, and, therefore, the probe would, to a large extent, be an examination of the nagging issues he left behind.

Instead of a dead-end enquiry, some people have called on the Government to invest more in the service and properly outfit fire officers.

They fear there could be further fire casualties if the authorities do not treat the matter with the urgency it deserves.