Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les is call­ing on Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der to dis­close ex­act­ly how many pass­port book­lets re­main in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s in­ven­to­ry, say­ing the pub­lic still needs a clear pic­ture of the coun­try’s cur­rent sup­ply de­spite as­sur­ances from the min­istry that more pass­ports are on the way.

While the min­istry said T&T is not fac­ing a pass­port short­age and con­firmed that ad­di­tion­al pass­port book­lets have been or­dered, Beck­les said the key ques­tion re­mains unan­swered.

“The ques­tions are di­rect. How many pass­port book­lets re­main in the coun­try’s in­ven­to­ry? How many cit­i­zens are cur­rent­ly await­ing pass­ports?” Beck­les asked.

She said the is­sue rep­re­sents a test of pub­lic ac­count­abil­i­ty, ar­gu­ing that cit­i­zens should not have to re­ly on­ly on as­sur­ances when deal­ing with an es­sen­tial State doc­u­ment.

“Trinidad and To­ba­go is now be­ing told that one of the most es­sen­tial doc­u­ments is­sued by the State may be in dan­ger­ous­ly short sup­ply, yet the Min­is­ter re­spon­si­ble has failed to pro­vide the coun­try with the ba­sic facts re­quired to re­store pub­lic con­fi­dence,” she said.

The Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty has said the Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion re­ceived 50,000 ma­chine-read­able pass­port book­lets in Oc­to­ber 2025 and a fur­ther 12,000 in June 2026. It al­so con­firmed that an­oth­er 48,000 book­lets are ex­pect­ed in Sep­tem­ber as the coun­try tran­si­tions to­ward an elec­tron­ic pass­port sys­tem.

How­ev­er, the min­istry has not dis­closed how many book­lets are cur­rent­ly avail­able af­ter months of con­tin­ued pass­port is­suance.

Beck­les said the tran­si­tion to e-Pass­ports should not dis­tract from im­me­di­ate ques­tions about ex­ist­ing sup­plies and the abil­i­ty of cit­i­zens to ac­cess pass­ports now.

“The Min­is­ter can­not use the pro­posed tran­si­tion to e-pass­ports as a shield against im­me­di­ate ac­count­abil­i­ty. An Ex­pres­sion of In­ter­est is not a signed con­tract. It is not pro­duc­tion. It is not de­liv­ery. It does not place pass­port book­lets in the hands of cit­i­zens who need to trav­el now,” she said.

She added that any dis­rup­tion to pass­port avail­abil­i­ty could have se­ri­ous con­se­quences for cit­i­zens who need to trav­el for ed­u­ca­tion, em­ploy­ment, med­ical care, busi­ness or fam­i­ly emer­gen­cies.

“A pass­port is not a lux­u­ry. It is an es­sen­tial State doc­u­ment,” Beck­les said.

The Op­po­si­tion Leader al­so raised con­cerns about ex­ist­ing de­lays in the pass­port sys­tem, say­ing cit­i­zens were al­ready fac­ing dif­fi­cul­ties se­cur­ing ap­point­ments and re­ceiv­ing com­plet­ed doc­u­ments be­fore ques­tions emerged about book­let in­ven­to­ry.

She called on the Gov­ern­ment to pro­vide greater trans­paren­cy on the re­main­ing sup­ply, cur­rent pro­cess­ing time­lines and mea­sures be­ing tak­en to en­sure cit­i­zens con­tin­ue re­ceiv­ing pass­ports with­out dis­rup­tion.

“The peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go de­serve hon­esty, com­pe­tence and ac­count­abil­i­ty. They de­serve an­swers, not ex­cus­es,” Beck­les said.