Port-of-Spain (Trinidad Express):

DON'T EXPECT an 'exodus' of homeless people and vagrants off the city streets for Cricket World Cup. Not if Minister of Social Transfor-mation, Trevor Prescod, has anything to do with it.

He said in a telephone interview on Monday that "imprisoning them" was what it would boil down to if this was done.

"I am not going to be motivated to take these people off the streets while the country is making provisions for Cricket World Cup. I have to do it in the most humane way and not in an insensitive way.

"It cannot be done in the interest of Cricket World Cup and to improve the aesthetics of Barbados and for the accommodation of visitors. I am not going to inflict that kind of harm on my own people," said the minister.

He added: "I believe they have their rights. We have to find out why they are sleeping on the streets. There will be no special witch-hunt and we will not go out in the day and night and incarcerate them".

Prescod said he had seen "eccentric characters around the world" and also across the island, not just on the city's streets.

The minister added that Government had contributed $1.5 million towards construction of the Salvation Army's Reed Street shelter, and when completed, some of the street dwellers would be housed there.

He said private individuals had also applied to the Ministry of Social Transformation seeking permission to set up accommodation or "at least an injection of a sum of money" to sustain their operations.

People's rights

"A large number of private persons have applied to operate night shelters and residential homes. It takes thousands of dollars to run centres, including paying staff and buying supplies and so on," Prescod said.

He lauded the application as "good" and in the same breath noted the reality was that investigations had to be carried out in order not to trample people's rights.