The Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go has is­sued an of­fi­cial state­ment, clar­i­fy­ing the facts sur­round­ing the in­vi­ta­tions ex­tend­ed to the Com­mon­wealth and to CARI­COM, to con­sid­er send­ing Elec­tion Ob­ser­va­tion Mis­sions to this coun­try, for the Gen­er­al Elec­tion card­ed for Mon­day 10 Au­gust 2020.

The state­ment comes as the Po­lit­i­cal Leader of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC), ac­cus­es the Prime Min­is­ter of mis­lead­ing the pop­u­la­tion on why the Com­mon­wealth ob­servers would be un­able to be in the coun­try in time for quar­an­tine and the Gen­er­al Elec­tion.

In the state­ment, the Gov­ern­ment main­tains that costs as­so­ci­at­ed with the Mis­sion be­ing housed in quar­an­tine were one of the key con­sid­er­a­tions for the Com­mon­wealth.

The full text of the Gov­ern­ment’s state­ment, fol­lows…

ELEC­TION OB­SER­VA­TION MIS­SIONS RE­QUEST­ED BY THE GOV­ERN­MENT OF TRINIDAD AND TO­BA­GO

The Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go con­tin­ues its ef­forts to en­sure the pres­ence of Elec­tion Ob­servers in Trinidad and To­ba­go pri­or to and dur­ing the Na­tion­al Par­lia­men­tary Elec­tions sched­uled for Au­gust 10, 2020. Prime Min­is­ter Dr the Hon. Kei­th Row­ley, ex­tend­ed in­vi­ta­tions on Ju­ly 9, 2020 to the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (CARI­COM) and the Com­mon­wealth to con­sid­er send­ing Elec­tion Ob­ser­va­tion Mis­sions to Trinidad and To­ba­go dur­ing the up­com­ing Na­tion­al Par­lia­men­tary Elec­tions, sched­uled for Au­gust 10, 2020

It was in­di­cat­ed then, that as part of our COVID-19 pro­to­col, we were re­quir­ing that all en­trants to Trinidad and To­ba­go agree to manda­to­ry quar­an­tine for four­teen (14) days pri­or to any mix­ing with the lo­cal pop­u­la­tion. As such it was ad­vised that se­lect­ed ob­servers should ar­rive in Trinidad and To­ba­go by Ju­ly 24, 2020 in prepa­ra­tion for the des­ig­nat­ed ex­er­cise to take place af­ter the manda­to­ry quar­an­tine.

Both or­ga­ni­za­tions have ad­vised of their in­abil­i­ty to meet the cost as­so­ci­at­ed with the four­teen (14) day quar­an­tine pe­ri­od re­quired for en­try in­to Trinidad and To­ba­go which is an in­te­gral part of our man­age­ment of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. Specif­i­cal­ly, they cit­ed con­straints due to fi­nan­cial stric­tures that dis­al­low them from meet­ing this cost.

To en­sure the in­tegri­ty of the con­tri­bu­tion of the Mis­sions (rec­om­men­da­tions and the re­port of Ob­ser­va­tion Mis­sions), it is deemed nec­es­sary that the host Gov­ern­ment (Trinidad and To­ba­go) not cov­er the costs re­lat­ed to the quar­an­tine of mem­bers of the Elec­tion Ob­ser­va­tion Mis­sions.

Re­quests have been made by Trinidad and To­ba­go to po­ten­tial bene­fac­tors with­in the Com­mon­wealth com­mu­ni­ty to cov­er these costs. To date, no de­fin­i­tive pos­i­tive re­sults have been ob­tained and the time­ly ar­rival has ex­pired if per­sons were to fol­low the es­tab­lished manda­to­ry pro­to­col.

In the event that any al­ter­na­tive arrange­ment for trav­el be­comes avail­able, such re­quests will be sub­ject to con­di­tions laid down by the Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer in the most fa­cil­i­ta­to­ry and safe way.

The Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go con­tin­ues to per­se­vere in at­tempt­ing to se­cure the nec­es­sary re­sources and modal­i­ties to en­cour­age the ar­rival of at least one Elec­tion Ob­ser­va­tion Mis­sion. At this time it ap­pears that on­ly a CARI­COM mis­sion might be avail­able if health pro­to­cols can be met.