ELIZ­A­BETH GON­ZA­LES

Se­nior Re­porter

eliz­a­beth.gon­za­les

@guardian.co.tt

Chief Sec­re­tary and To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty po­lit­i­cal leader Far­ley Au­gus­tine says the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly will roll out its own is­land­wide CCTV sys­tem. He says the is­land can no longer de­pend on na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies af­ter mul­ti­ple mur­ders and rob­beries, where sus­pects es­caped by sea.

To­ba­go record­ed 26 mur­ders in 2024 and eight so far this year, ac­cord­ing to po­lice da­ta.

Speak­ing at a TPP meet­ing in Sig­nal Hill on Thurs­day evening, Au­gus­tine said sev­er­al killings over the past two years ex­posed se­ri­ous gaps in bor­der pro­tec­tion and law en­force­ment re­sponse. He told sup­port­ers, “Mur­ders hap­pen­ing and peo­ple just jump in boats and sail away. Me ain’t see no radar. Me ain’t see no Coast Guard to stop them.”

Au­gus­tine said even in cas­es where of­fi­cers tried to re­spond, the agen­cies lacked ba­sic re­sources. “Coast Guard couldn’t get to them be­cause Coast Guard need­ed gas for a boat, and I’m say­ing to you, To­ba­go, that is un­ac­cept­able,” he said.

He warned that To­ba­go can­not “sit down and watch it hap­pen,” adding, “We have to take some rad­i­cal de­ci­sions to keep this is­land safe and keep our peo­ple safe, and that we must do with­out any apol­o­gy what­so­ev­er.”

Au­gus­tine said the THA has al­ready been help­ing to fill se­cu­ri­ty gaps, even though na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty does not fall un­der its le­gal re­mit. “We’re pay­ing rent for ve­hi­cles to them for don­key years… Coast Guard and the Reg­i­ment had none. They now have about ten go­ing around with—guess who pay­ing for it? To­ba­go pay­ing for it.”

Au­gus­tine pre­vi­ous­ly dis­closed that the THA spent “mil­lions of dol­lars” sup­port­ing na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty in 2024, in­clud­ing “$1.4 mil­lion on ve­hi­cles alone” for the TTPS, Coast Guard and De­fence Force. But now he said that spend­ing will sup­port the is­land’s new CCTV pro­gramme, which will use THA build­ings and in­fra­struc­ture to link cam­eras in­to a cen­tral sys­tem.

“The To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly is cur­rent­ly the largest prop­er­ty hold­er and one of the things we are ex­plor­ing right now is in­stalling cam­era sys­tems in every sin­gle place the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly has a prop­er­ty,” he said. “And to then con­nect those to a cen­tral com­mand cen­tre that will al­low us to mon­i­tor the en­tire is­land 24/7, so we know who’s go­ing where, when.”

Au­gus­tine in­sist­ed the sys­tem would not be used to in­ter­fere in peo­ple’s pri­vate lives.

“No, this is not for an in­va­sion of pri­va­cy. We don’t care who’s sneak­ing out by who and who’s sneak­ing in by who. That’s not what we’re look­ing for.” In­stead, he said the cam­eras will tar­get those “who want to dis­tress the com­mu­ni­ty, those who want to play ban­dit by night, those who want to be abu­sive to young peo­ple.” He added that more de­tails would be re­vealed soon, but the roll­out has al­ready be­gun.

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der could not be reached for com­ment.

To­ba­go Coun­cil of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment leader An­cil Den­nis said the par­ty would re­veal its own se­cu­ri­ty plan at the launch of its can­di­dates.