RHON­DOR
DOWLAT-ROS­TANT

The Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty has been al­lo­cat­ed $5.664 bil­lion, which in­cludes fund­ing for the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice.

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert dis­closed this dur­ing the de­liv­ery of his sev­enth Bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion in the Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day.

Im­bert as­sured that the se­cu­ri­ty of the coun­try and its cit­i­zens, as well as the pro­tec­tion of na­tion­al in­ter­ests, “is at the core of our na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty agen­da.”

How­ev­er, he not­ed that T&T is fac­ing sev­er­al emerg­ing threats, in­clud­ing hu­man traf­fick­ing, smug­gling of il­lic­it prod­ucts, drug traf­fick­ing and a wide range of in­ter­nal crim­i­nal­i­ty dri­ven by com­mu­ni­ty gangs.

He said in com­bat­ing these threats, the Gov­ern­ment has fo­cused on a mul­ti-agency ap­proach aimed at im­prov­ing co­or­di­na­tion and col­lab­o­ra­tion among se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies, “all of which we have re­formed and strength­ened and pro­vid­ed with ad­vanced tech­nolo­gies and on­line plat­forms.”

“We will con­tin­ue un­der­tak­ing these mea­sures to en­sure the se­cu­ri­ty of our cit­i­zens and the pro­tec­tion of our in­ter­ests. We are strength­en­ing our bor­der con­trol and mar­itime ca­pac­i­ty by bol­ster­ing our off­shore ca­pa­bil­i­ties,” he said.

Police Officers being addressed by the CoP (Ag) at Western Division on September 23rd. (Image courtesy TTPS)

Im­bert said they are ad­vanc­ing tech­nol­o­gy us­age across all na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ser­vices with full digi­ti­sa­tion of ser­vice di­vi­sions, “there­by im­prov­ing the ef­fi­cien­cy of op­er­a­tions and track­ing the move­ment of ev­i­dence.”

“We are cre­at­ing pur­pose-built spaces: the In­te­grat­ed Lo­gis­tics Sup­port Fa­cil­i­ty at the He­li­port Base Ch­aguara­mas will pro­vide the Trinidad and To­ba­go Coast Guard with the nec­es­sary in­fra­struc­ture to con­duct ef­fec­tive re­pairs and main­te­nance of its ves­sels. New fire sta­tions at Pe­nal, Rox­bor­ough To­ba­go, Point Fortin and Ma­yaro are pro­vid­ing an in­creased mea­sure of pub­lic safe­ty ser­vices for house­holds, schools, busi­ness­es, as well as ex­ist­ing oil and gas in­fra­struc­ture.”

He said they are im­prov­ing the se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus at the Gold­en Grove Prison with the in­stal­la­tion of se­cu­ri­ty fenc­ing and in­stal­la­tion of alarm sys­tems and a CCTV sys­tem and con­tin­u­ing up­grade works at the Re­mand Yard Prison.

“We have made our na­tion­als safe and go­ing for­ward we will set aside con­tin­u­ous re­sources to build the ca­pac­i­ty of all the units in our se­cu­ri­ty sec­tor and to en­sure that our youth is ful­ly pro­tect­ed,” Im­bert said.