SHAR­LENE RAM­PER­SAD

If you breach the Quar­an­tine Act when com­ing in­to the coun­try when its bor­ders open on Ju­ly 17, you can be fined up to $350,000 and face im­pris­on­ment for up to one year.

This as the Quar­an­tine Amend­ment Act 2021, was passed in the Low­er House of Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day.

In in­tro­duc­ing the act, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi said the de­bate on the act was tied to the re­open­ing of the econ­o­my and the re­open­ing of the bor­ders.

“We must to­day en­sure that in the re­open­ing of the bor­ders, that reg­u­la­tions that are of­fered in the Quar­an­tine Act and that the in­for­ma­tion which you pro­vide, very im­por­tant­ly, at the bor­der, that you are bound to be aware that you must tell the truth, you must co­op­er­ate, you must en­sure that the of­fi­cers act­ing un­der the Quar­an­tine Act are giv­en full in­for­ma­tion that is ac­cu­rate and full co­op­er­a­tion,” Al-Rawi said.

He said the first amend­ment to the act will make the fines for breach of the act equal to breach­es of the Pub­lic Health Reg­u­la­tions - which is a max­i­mum fine of $250,000 and max­i­mum im­pris­on­ment for six months.

The sec­ond amend­ment en­tails in­creas­ing fines for breach­es of Sec­tion 7 of the act from a max­i­mum fine of $6,000 and im­pris­on­ment for up to six months, to a max­i­mum of $350,000 and im­pris­on­ment for a max­i­mum of one year.

“Sec­tion 7 of Quar­an­tine Act is where any per­son who re­fus­es to an­swer, or know­ing­ly gives an un­true an­swer to any en­quiry made un­der the au­thor­i­ty of this act, or in­ten­tion­al­ly with­holds any in­for­ma­tion rea­son­ably re­quired of him by an of­fi­cer or oth­er per­son act­ing un­der the au­thor­i­ty of this act, or know­ing­ly fur­nish­es to any such of­fi­cer or any oth­er per­son, in­for­ma­tion which is false or B—re­fus­es or will­ful­ly omits to do any act re­quired of him or to car­ry out the law­ful or­der or in­struc­tion, or C—as­saults, re­sists or wil­ful­ly struck, in­tim­i­dates any of­fi­cer, et cetera, is guilty of an of­fence ef­fec­tive­ly,” Al-Rawi ex­plained.

He said this is a pro­por­tion­ate, nec­es­sary law and it needs to be passed with im­me­di­a­cy be­fore the bor­ders are re­opened.

In re­sponse, Op­po­si­tion MP for Fyz­abad, Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe, asked Al-Rawi to re­con­sid­er the fees im­posed un­der Sec­tion 7, say­ing it might be seen by some as be­ing too high. Bo­doe al­so ex­pressed con­cern for im­mi­gra­tion and port health of­fi­cers who have to in­ter­act with re­turn­ing cit­i­zens and vis­i­tors when the bor­der re­opens.

He said some of the of­fences un­der Sec­tion 7 of the act may be seen as sub­jec­tive.

“Some sort of train­ing will be re­quired, if that was not al­ready done, and most im­por­tant­ly, to ask the ques­tion and have the as­sur­ance that those who will be deal­ing with re­turn­ing pas­sen­gers at the air­port when we open on Ju­ly 17, in terms of whether they will be ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed, both im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cers and port health of­fi­cers, who are so im­por­tant in this whole process,” Bo­doe said.

He al­so asked whether con­sid­er­a­tion was be­ing giv­en for the use of a trav­el app for in­com­ing pas­sen­gers, that can al­low them to up­load their rel­e­vant doc­u­ments be­fore en­try.

In re­sponse, En­er­gy Min­is­ter and Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, Stu­art Young, said the OPM has al­ready be­gun build­ing such an app—which will be called the TT Trav­el Pass.

Young said he got a demon­stra­tion of the app yes­ter­day morn­ing.

“So per­sons com­ing in­to Trinidad and To­ba­go will be re­quired to up­load all the in­for­ma­tion to get a trav­el cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, which is re­al­ly a green light that they can board the plane with­in that 72-hour pe­ri­od,” Young said.

He said the app was built by the same com­pa­ny that built sim­i­lar apps for Ja­maica, St Lu­cia, Grena­da, Turks and Caicos and the British Vir­gin Is­lands.

“So it is the ex­act same plat­form but, of course, with our re­quire­ments be­cause we are go­ing with a vac­ci­nat­ed ver­sus un­vac­ci­nat­ed line of en­try in­to Trinidad and To­ba­go. This bill is to fit in­to that plat­form be­cause peo­ple who are re­quired to up­load their vac­ci­na­tion in­for­ma­tion if they are vac­ci­nat­ed if you pro­vide false in­for­ma­tion, these are the fines that you are go­ing to be ap­plied to you,” Young said.

He said the app is ex­pect­ed to be launched be­fore the bor­ders re­open on Ju­ly 17 and it will be un­veiled to the pub­lic in a me­dia con­fer­ence some­time in the com­ing days.

Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh, in his con­tri­bu­tion, said his min­istry will com­plete the vac­ci­na­tion of im­mi­gra­tion and port health of­fi­cers by next week.