AUGUSTUS — STOP THE JUNIOR SOCA

UNC Senator Roy Augustus yesterday called on the Government to stop the involvement of schoolchildren in the Prestige Promotions Junior Soca Monarch. In staunch defence of the action of police and in a  stinging criticism of the Ministry of Education and Prestige Promotions, UNC Senator Roy Augustus recounted the events of last Friday in which students had to be hauled to the Besson Street Police Station. He was speaking on the Offences Against the Person Amendment Act in the Senate yesterday.

Augustus said that he was in support of children taking part in calypso and pan, but it had to be done properly. “Let us stop Caribbean Prestige (from) using our children and going home counting the money as the children are wining their way down Frederick Street and all the way to the police station.” Augustus, a former school principal, said he first observed the children on the Promenade harrassing the public and become fearful from what he saw. Later, when he was having a hair cut in the Besson Street area, he saw a student in handcuffs being taken to the police station. He decided to go to the Station and he reported that he saw “professionalism at work.” 

Augustus, who said he spoke with the assistant superintendent and a couple of officers, stated: “I saw those who were to be charged, inclusive of a lady who was not handling it very well. The adult was not handling it, but the two children were nonchalant, relaxed.” “It did not matter to them. They were in the ‘baddest’ police station in Trinidad and it didn’t matter,” Augustus lamented, asking almost rhetorically: “How do we prevent that?”

Noting that the police had everything “well organised,” he  said they quite rightly called the parents. “The only thing those children in that band of 50 or 60 students didn’t do was give each other hi five,” he said. “They were enjoying themselves in ‘B Street Station’ as they called it,” he said. “And when I thought that the parents would have been ashamed, I saw parents coming for their children, girl child, boy child, not a word of reprimand. Well if you make a child and you can’t reprimand it, don’t make no more,” Augustus stated, adding: “We in trouble you know, Madam President.

Not only the Minister of National Security and the Ministry of Education, all of us in real trouble,” he said. “First of all,” he asked, “why did we provide them with a entitlement of the Junior Soca Monarch? Is that Caribbean Prestige (Promotions) who we give so much money for Carnival? Is that the man who ran the Junior Soca Monarch without the necessary management tools in place? Are we doing this still, after Soca Storm (at the Centre of Excellence two years ago when female students beat up a policewoman) under the purview of the Ministry of Education?”