He’s only 11 years old but Jameeq Antoine, of Four Roads, Diego Martin, is his mother’s eyes and her help. Young Jameeq accompanied his mother, Crystal Griffith, to CrimeWatch this week as she sought host Ian Alleyne’s help in solving a problem which has been plaguing her for several months. The woman claimed that someone had been collecting her social welfare cheques without her consent.
She said she had no idea who the culprit was and had been unable to get assistance from the Social Welfare Division to find out. She was also having problems getting social welfare assistance for her children. She said she gets a runaround from the clerks when she goes and really does not have the resources to keep going.
Alleyne called on the Prime Minister, who took charge of the Ministry of Social Development following the dismissal of Dr Glenn Ramadharsingh, to get her staff to assist the woman. Griffith went blind in 2012 after she developed a tumour. She is unable to move around without assistance and often has to wait on one of her children for help. The burden often falls on Jameeq, but he has accepted his responsibility and has been doing what he can to help his mother.
Alleyne gave Griffith two hampers and has promised to seek help for her children to get a computer. A group of sisters also aired their dirty linen on CrimeWatch this week after one of them, Resheeda Jagan, of Diamond Village, San Fernando, accused another of taking $10,000 to do electrical works at her home but failing to do so.
Jagan told Alleyne that she paid her sister, Janerian Goolcharan, and her husband, Hollis Mohan, of Beckles Trace, Esperanza, the $10,000 in July last year, but they failed to do the work. However, Alleyne brought all the parties together and Mohan told Alleyne he never took any $10,000 from Jagan and he never agreed to any work. This was confirmed by Goolcharan, who said she was the one who had agreed to do the work. She asked Alleyne to tell her sister to apologise to her husband. Jagan eventually did.
Goolcharan explained she had spent $7,000 on material for the electrical work and had actually started the work. But she said her sister, who is living on Land Settlement Agency (LSA) land, needed two poles installed to get electricity to her home. One pole, she said, cost over $17,000 and in any event it was T&TEC who would have to install the pole.
Goolcharan said since April 30 she had gone to the bank and got a manager’s cheque to return to her sister and she used the opportunity to give it to her, but Jagan refused to take it telling her “use it to clean up her integrity.”
A battle then broke out on air with Jagan, Goolcharan and their two other sisters who had come. Jagan admitted that she does not speak to any of them. Several internal family issues were made public, including a charge from her elder sister that she helped Jagan take care of her son when he was mere months old and at age nine when Jagan took him back she made all sorts of accusations against her.
Alleyne urged them as sisters to come together and stop the bickering, telling them, “Life is short and you never know what could happen and you all would have to come together.” They left the set still bickering.
Unsolved
Alleyne says that the same men who robbed Hariz Fashions are responsible for robberies at Value Optical in San Juan and have now moved to south Trinidad stealing clothes from a clothing store on the SS Erin Road in Penal. Alleyne is looking for Patrick and Kerwin Xavier and Bevon, aka Redbag. And weeks after promising to look into the matter, Vishnu Ramlochan says National Security Minister Gary Griffith has failed to contact him on the $6 million which he is owed by the Coast Guard for food supplied.
Ramlochan told Alleyne the minister asked him to send all his documents and he did, but he is yet to hear from anyone regarding his long outstanding payment.