Jesse Ramdeo 

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Fire Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tion (FSA) pres­i­dent Keone Guy is de­mand­ing that the re­port in­to the deaths of for­mer min­is­ter Lisa Mor­ris-Ju­lian and her two chil­dren be made pub­lic im­me­di­ate­ly.

His call comes over one month af­ter a three-mem­ber in­ves­tiga­tive com­mit­tee head­ed by for­mer chief fire of­fi­cer Roo­sevelt Bruce sub­mit­ted their find­ings to Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds. 

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, Guy asked whether the re­luc­tance to re­veal the find­ings was linked to the FSA’s po­si­tion that the Fire Ser­vice is un­der­fund­ed and in­ad­e­quate­ly re­sourced.

“At the time of the re­lease of this doc­u­ment, five of 11 sta­tions in the north are with­out fire ten­ders. To­ba­go is with­out any SC­BA sets what­so­ev­er, there is in­ad­e­quate PPE to pro­tect of­fi­cers, un­nec­es­sary de­lays in re­im­burse­ment for med­ical claims and hun­dreds of va­can­cies in the or­gan­i­sa­tion,” he said.

Last De­cem­ber, Mor­ris-Julien, the D’Abadie/O’Meara MP, and two of her chil­dren died in a fire that gut­ted their home at Far­fan Street, Ari­ma. 

The com­mit­tee, com­pris­ing Bruce, Kurt Cadet, Chair­man of the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Au­thor­i­ty (OS­HA), and Ashti Ma­habir, an at­tor­ney in the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Le­gal Af­fairs, was tasked with ex­am­in­ing the Fire Ser­vice’s han­dling of the blaze.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley or­dered the probe fol­low­ing con­flict­ing re­ports about the in­ci­dent and a pub­lic dis­pute be­tween the T&T Fire Ser­vice and the Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties. Hinds, who con­firmed re­ceiv­ing the re­port, said wa­ter avail­abil­i­ty was not a fac­tor in the Fire Ser­vice’s re­sponse to the fire. How­ev­er, he did not pro­vide any fur­ther de­tails. 

Guy in­sist­ed that the con­tents of the re­port be re­vealed.

“The peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go de­serve an­swers. Giv­en that this in­ves­ti­ga­tion was ini­ti­at­ed due to “pub­lic dis­qui­et” the As­so­ci­a­tion calls on the Min­is­ter to re­lease the full con­tents of the re­port im­me­di­ate­ly,” he said.

He added that trans­paren­cy was crit­i­cal in ad­dress­ing the se­ri­ous is­sues sur­round­ing emer­gency re­sponse and pub­lic safe­ty.

Guy al­so ap­pealed to the Gov­ern­ment to ur­gent­ly ad­dress de­fi­cien­cies with­in the Fire Ser­vice.

“Of­fi­cers con­tin­ue to per­form their du­ties with ded­i­ca­tion de­spite lim­it­ed re­sources and it is un­ac­cept­able for them to be scape­goat­ed for sys­temic fail­ures be­yond their con­trol,” he said.

Hinds has not re­spond­ed to ques­tions sent to him on the mat­ter.