The Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty will be in­tro­duc­ing an on­line ap­pli­ca­tion sys­tem for trav­el ex­emp­tion re­quests to­mor­row.

The an­nounce­ment was made by the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Stu­art Young at a me­dia con­fer­ence held at the min­istry’s head of­fice on Fri­day.

Young pro­vid­ed the up­date on the ex­emp­tion process for T&T na­tion­als who wished to en­ter the coun­try while the cur­rent bor­der re­stric­tions re­main in place, as a re­sult of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

Peo­ple wish­ing to re­quest an ex­emp­tion to en­ter or de­part T&T will now be re­quired to di­rect­ly ac­cess an ap­pli­ca­tion form on the Min­istry’s web­site page www.na­tion­alse­cu­ri­ty.gov.tt un­der the head­ing “Trav­el Ex­emp­tions”.

Unique fea­tures of this ap­pli­ca­tion sys­tem are:

* The ap­pli­ca­tion form will be sim­i­lar to that used for ap­ply­ing for a visa and will be con­sid­ered a statu­to­ry de­c­la­ra­tion.

* Each form will have a unique iden­ti­fi­ca­tion num­ber which can be used to track the progress of the ap­pli­ca­tion.

* Peo­ple can fill out the form on­ly once (per­sons must use the form to ap­ply for them­selves and their fam­i­lies at the same time).

* Peo­ple who pre­vi­ous­ly made ap­pli­ca­tions for ex­emp­tions and have not yet re­ceived ap­provals will be re­quired to re-ap­ply via the new on­line method.

This new sys­tem will al­low of­fi­cials to ver­i­fy in­for­ma­tion, re­view re­quests and pri­ori­tise ap­pli­cants.

Cor­po­rate en­ti­ties seek­ing cor­po­rate trav­el ex­emp­tions can email corp­trav­elex­emp­tion@mns.gov.tt for ar­rivals, and cor­pde­par­tex­emp­tion@mns.gov.tt for de­par­tures.

The Gov­ern­ment’s pri­or­i­ty re­mained to get na­tion­als of T&T back home. Ex­emp­tions and the grant­i­ng of ap­provals will con­tin­ue to de­pend on the num­ber of peo­ple in the queue and on the quar­an­tine space avail­able.

As of Thurs­day, 19,941 ap­pli­ca­tions were made to en­ter T&Tand 11,682 of those had been grant­ed.