HYPOCRISY IN FIRE PROBE

THE government did not probe the inability of the fire services to save an elderly bedridden partially blind man in a Santa Cruz fire in September 2023.

Nor did the authorities investigate the circumstances that took the precious lives of three children of the Burke family in a July 2021 blaze in Maraval.

There was no urgency after a pregnant woman, a five-year-old girl and her grandmother perished in a June 2022 Gasparillo fire.

There have been no enquiries into several other dreadful deaths and destruction of homes, business places and warehouse stocks from blazing infernos.

Fires at Cedros and Chatham took family homes while the unit at Point Fortin – 20 miles away – raced to the respective scenes.

These catastrophes followed the gross underfunding of the fire services, causing critical shortages of appliances, portable pumps, functional hoses, breathing apparatus, harnesses, jaw of life, and other essentials.

The Cabinet was unmoved when two fire officers were flung from a sky-lift and injured after a mechanical failure earlier this year.

The government recklessly ignored the obvious effect of reducing funding to the fire services to a third of last year’s budget.

There was no urgency from the powers-that-be to the lack of appliances at Mayaro and Penal, and the absence of gears at Belmont, Point Fortin, Woodbrook, Chaguaramas and other stations.

The Fire Officers’ Association protested as far back as 2018 that they were under-resourced, and recently said the essential service was being run like a village parlour.

Government Minister and Member of Parliament Lisa Morris-Julian and her children were victims of that palpable neglect of the crucial fire services.

The public official and her family may have stood a chance of escaping the flames if the fire services were properly outfitted and there was an efficient support water system.

Against that backdrop, an investigating committee is a blatant act of hypocrisy, showboating, and management mumbo-jumbo.

It is another in a long list of dead-end fanfare enquiries, a relic of colonial overlords.

The announced enquiry is also an eye-opening reminder of George Orwell’s Animal Farm, where all are equal but a tiny elite commands more power and privileges.

More disturbingly, the scenario illustrates the glaring incompetence and negligence of our leaders even in the midst of the loss of lives.