Housing Situation for Cops on Caye Caulker Ignored

And while the Ministry is looking at the holding cells, it has also looked at the living conditions of Police Officers stationed in Caye Caulker. A few months ago News Five showed you the dorm room where officers working on the island must live – we use the term live loosely. It was a mess…dilapidated, filthy and certainly unsanitary. What’s strange is that nothing has been done to improve the building, especially after C.E.O. George Lovell told us that he gave specific directives to the Commissioner months ago.

Reporter

“There’s the issue of the Caye Caulker dorm facility where Police officers are forced to stay. We went in there and we took footage – it’s in terrible condition. Have these things been brought to the attention of the Ministry and are they things that will be looked at with some sense of priority?”

George Lovell

Ret’d. Col. George Lovell, C.E.O., Ministry of National Security

“I personally with the Commissioner of Police visited the Caye Caulker dorm facilities in September I think it was, of this year. And when I went there, like yourself…I was appalled by the conditions in which the facility was in. Right away I instructed the Commissioner for us to get the estimates and we will get the work done and I had hoped that by now I would have been able to say to you that the work has commenced because this has been now over a month since I have last been there. I still haven’t seen anything on my table in terms of the estimates and for us to set out to tender if we need to do so to get the repairs done. I was told that the facilities are owned by the Caye Caulker Village Council, but I don’t mind repairing it, because our people are using it and using it free of cost. So as the accounting person I can justify to anybody, be it the audit committee or any committee, why we are spending on something that government does not own because we are in fact benefitting from it. I am still waiting for those estimates to come in. I am still waiting for those estimates to come in. As I have said, I have already given the Commissioner directives to get the work done.”

We’re not sure quite how long it takes to get estimates, but we’ll check back in early 2015 for an update.