Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Pres­i­dent of the As­so­ci­a­tion of Fu­ner­al Pro­fes­sion­als of Trinidad and To­ba­go Kei­th Bel­grove is call­ing on Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley to make good on a promise made two years ago to bring leg­is­la­tion to reg­u­late the fu­ner­al in­dus­try.

In a What­sApp re­sponse to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Bel­grove said the leg­is­la­tion may ad­dress the is­sue af­fect­ing the Gar­cia fam­i­ly, who had to post­pone the fu­ner­al for their grand­fa­ther Raphael Gar­cia when his body was mixed up with an­oth­er man on Fri­day.

On Fri­day, Gar­cia’s grand­son Keon Cun­ning­ham said the fam­i­ly on­ly found out the wrong body was at the ser­vice in Curepe when the fi­nal view­ing was be­ing done. He said the fam­i­ly was dev­as­tat­ed by the mix-up and was seek­ing le­gal ad­vice on how to pro­ceed.

Cun­ning­ham added that when the body re­turned to the Curepe-based fu­ner­al home, his grand­fa­ther’s body was there, still with the clothes he died in at his Curepe home on Feb­ru­ary 24. The fu­ner­al home then switched clothes and took his grand­fa­ther’s body to be buried.

How­ev­er, Cun­ning­ham said the oth­er de­ceased man had al­ready been blessed, as the last rites were per­formed dur­ing the fu­ner­al ser­vice. 

Asked for a com­ment on the mix-up, Bel­grove said, “These op­er­a­tional fail­ures can be cor­rect­ed if fu­ner­al homes ad­here to the T&T Bu­reau of Stan­dards Vol­un­tary Stan­dards for all fu­ner­al homes in T&T. Fur­ther, we are anx­ious­ly await­ing the Fu­ner­al Ser­vices Act. Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley seem­ing­ly re­neged on his hus­tings com­mit­ment to see the bill through Par­lia­ment in this term. Al­though the po­lit­i­cal cli­mate has an elec­tion loom­ing, we are quite hope­ful of hav­ing a law be­fore Par­lia­ment is closed.”

That hope was dashed as Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness Camille Robin­son-Reg­is said there are no plans to bring such leg­is­la­tion to Par­lia­ment be­fore the elec­tion is called.

“It won’t be this year. It’s not go­ing to be brought be­fore the elec­tion. I feel cer­tain of that, so I wouldn’t be able to say (when it will come to Par­lia­ment).”

Dur­ing his con­ver­sa­tion tour in 2023, Row­ley said one of the things he was con­sid­er­ing, at the re­quest of the fu­ner­al agen­cies, is leg­is­la­tion to gov­ern the man­age­ment of the fu­ner­al in­dus­try.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions dur­ing Con­ver­sa­tions with the Prime Min­is­ter at the La Joya Com­plex, St Joseph, Row­ley said then, “We should do some­thing about that be­cause there are some as­pects to it that are not cur­rent­ly cov­ered by ef­fec­tive leg­is­la­tion, and we need to do that to im­prove the ser­vices re­quired.”