Laventille residents protecting Beverly Hills

LAVENTILLE RESIDENTS have formed themselves into a security company to protect the Beverly Hills housing project.

This was revealed yesterday by site contractor Hafeez Karamath following a visit to the site by Housing Minister Dr Keith Rowley, Planning Minister Camille Robinson-Regis and Laven-tille West MP Eulalie James. Earlier this year, equipment on the site was firebombed, security guards were fired upon by unknown assailants and shots were fired at a resident’s home. While there was a heavy po-lice/army presence yesterday for the Ministers’ visit, Karamath told reporters this was not the norm on the site. “With regards to security on the site, there has been tremendous improvement. The police come along  but there has not been enough of a police presence to get the job done. The security of the site, materials and the equipment is being done by the people who live in the area. We had them form their own security force, they hired about eight people who do security for the site,” he said.

The contractor said while the overall project is two months behind schedule, Rowley was pleased with the progress to date at Beverly Hills and the fact that 98 percent of the workers were from the area. During the interview, Rowley interrupted Karamath and introduced him to a woman who was seeking employment on the project. Meanwhile, James held an impro-mptu meeting with residents who expressed concern about a recent crime in the area. James pledged to help them and was assured by one young man that she would be “safe like Selassie” in Beverly Hills. Speaking with reporters at a housing site in Curepe, Rowley said he was satisfied with the security arrangements at Beverly Hills. “That site has some peculiar problems but steps have been taken to ameliorate or eliminate them,” he stated. Dr Rowley said the NHA apartment refurbishment programme was continuing apace and Government has allocated $15 million for that programme.

In August, Prime Minister Patrick Manning announced that the armed forces would be deployed to deal with certain security concerns in that programme. This was subsequently confirmed by NHA executive director Noel Garcia who said members of the Inter-Agency Task Force would be providing security in certain “hot spots” while the Civilian Conservation Corps and army engineers would be providing a training element to the programme. Rowley said the programme is currently operating in Port-of-Spain and Maloney. “The report is that the project is moving smoothly. In so far as there are security problems, the security agencies will deal with the problems,” the Minister stated.