00:00There should be a criminal investigation. This is this is a scene where you have
00:05three persons being who died. There should be a forensic clinical criminal
00:11investigation as well. The call from opposition leader Kamala Prasad Bhassa
00:15during a media conference at the UNC's headquarters in Chagonas on Thursday
00:20with regard to the fire in which Minister in the Ministry of Education
00:23and PNM MP Lisa Morrish-Julian and two of her children tragically died at the
00:29minister's home on Monday. The opposition leader was responding to a
00:33question from TV6 News which was in part about an announcement made by Prime
00:38Minister Dr. Keith Rowley on Wednesday. Why with a fire station on the corner
00:43of Fafan Street, why the first fire tender got there at the time that we now
00:49know he got there and I can tell you we have been receiving conflicting
00:54information and as a result of that today the National Security Council
01:00directed the Minister of National Security to come up by tomorrow
01:04afternoon with an appropriate committee to investigate why there wasn't a better
01:12response with a fire station on the corner.
01:15There's nothing wrong with a committee but who's going to be in that committee?
01:18If you're going to put your hand pictures on not independent persons and then what's the
01:23point? Let the fire officers and the police TTPS, they have to do an
01:30investigation as well. We don't know what happened and I don't want to pretend to
01:34know I don't know. That is why you need in addition to whatever committee the
01:37Prime Minister, which again I have no faith in any committee he sets up. I can name
01:41about 50 committees set up and we've never seen the reports and nothing has
01:45ever come out of those. But we should have a proper criminal
01:49investigation forensic into what transpired on that very tragic day or night.
01:54The fire service said on Monday that its fire prevention department and the
01:59TTPS are continuing investigations into the fire. The fire service also said that
02:03upon the arrival of firefighting crews a request was made for additional water
02:08supply due to a lack of water in the area. The Prime Minister and the Public
02:12Utilities Minister have said there was no problem with the water supply.
02:16Meanwhile the Fire Services Association has said there are critical deficiencies
02:21within the fire service.
02:33The organisation too is in a bad way in terms of equipment, lack of resources, lack of
02:38funding. I don't want to go into the details of what I have heard about what
02:43happened on that very tragic day. But it's no secret in this country that the
02:49fire service is totally underfunded, under-resourced in terms of equipment, in
02:53terms of other kinds of equipment. When TV6 News asked the opposition leader
02:58whether she sought to address some of those very issues in the fire service
03:02during her tenure as Prime Minister, she said that while she did not have that
03:07brief in front of her, she is sure her administration did and would have tried
03:12to do so. Jule Brown, TV6 News.
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