Akash Sama­roo

With just days to go be­fore the bor­der re­opens on Ju­ly 17, Gov­ern­ment has an­nounced a manda­to­ry trav­el doc­u­ment to en­ter Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“Be­fore you en­ter, you need to get a cer­tifi­cate from TTrav­el Pass,” ad­vised Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young yes­ter­day at the launch of the web por­tal where the au­tho­ri­sa­tion doc­u­ment can be ac­cessed.

Speak­ing at the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port in Port-of-Spain, Young hailed the web­site (TTrav­el­Pass.gov.tt) as a mile­stone in COVID-19 re­cov­ery.

Young said this doc­u­ment is to en­sure that trav­ellers pro­vide proof that they are vac­ci­nat­ed and for non-na­tion­als who are not yet in­oc­u­lat­ed or par­tial­ly vac­ci­nat­ed, an op­por­tu­ni­ty to de­clare that they have paid for their quar­an­tine stay at a state-ap­proved fa­cil­i­ty.

The process for ap­pli­ca­tion can on­ly take place with­in three days or 72 hours be­fore the date of trav­el.

The trav­eller will need to pro­vide pass­port in­for­ma­tion, a neg­a­tive PCR test tak­en no ear­li­er than 72 hours be­fore ar­rival, a vac­ci­na­tion card (for ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed pas­sen­gers), con­fir­ma­tion of paid state-su­per­vised ac­com­mo­da­tion (for un­vac­ci­nat­ed or par­tial­ly vac­ci­nat­ed pas­sen­gers), itin­er­ary in­for­ma­tion and gen­er­al health in­for­ma­tion.

Young said it is pru­dent that the state knows ex­act­ly where non-vac­ci­nat­ed na­tion­als are dur­ing their quar­an­tine pe­ri­od and this dig­i­tal da­ta will help. He said pas­sen­gers must al­so pro­vide proof of pay­ment for state-ap­proved trans­port.

“So, na­tion­als that are non-vac­ci­nat­ed you’re not go­ing to have your fam­i­ly pick­ing you up at the air­port or your friend, part of the pack­age is that you paid for your ho­tel room and you paid for ap­proved trans­port from Pi­ar­co to your ho­tel.”

He said stu­dents who at­tend re­gion­al uni­ver­si­ties and were not vac­ci­nat­ed will ben­e­fit from state-pro­vid­ed quar­an­tine fa­cil­i­ties.

The trav­el au­tho­ri­sa­tion doc­u­ment has a scannable QR code at­tached to it as a se­cu­ri­ty fea­ture. Young said this ap­plies to those com­ing in by boat as well. It was re­it­er­at­ed that non-na­tion­als who are not vac­ci­nat­ed will not be al­lowed in at this time.

How­ev­er, he said one cat­e­go­ry of un­vac­ci­nat­ed non-na­tion­als that is un­der con­sid­er­a­tion for an ex­emp­tion to the rule are those in the oil and gas sec­tor.

With re­spect to chil­dren, Young said they will not need this doc­u­ment.

“Chil­dren who are with a vac­ci­nat­ed par­ent or guardian are per­mit­ted to come in and not re­quired to quar­an­tine but they will be re­quired to pro­vide a neg­a­tive PCR test three to five days af­ter ar­rival.”

Young warned that de­clar­ing false in­for­ma­tion on the ap­pli­ca­tion car­ries with it a se­ri­ous fine.

“The fine has now been in­creased to $350,000, plus six months in prison.”

Young called the web­site an “ex­cel­lent IT plat­form” and he is con­fi­dent that mea­sures are in place if the por­tal fails.

When Guardian Me­dia asked what was the con­tin­gency plan for such an oc­cur­rence, Young said, “What if Ama­zon goes down one day, what if Pay­Pal goes down? You just have sys­tems in place to get it back up as quick­ly as pos­si­ble, so we’re hop­ing that there are no is­sues.”

Hot­lines will be set up and manned from 8 am to 4 pm for queries. The num­bers will be an­nounced by the Min­istry of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions.

Guardian Me­dia was told that the web­site (TTrav­el­Pass.gov.tt) would have been op­er­a­tional from mid­day yes­ter­day but up to late af­ter­noon, the web page on­ly an­nounced that the web­site was “Com­ing Soon.”