Hinds questions security arrangement at airport

He was speaking to Newsday following a tour of Customs bonded areas and bonds controlled by private cargo handling companies at the south terminal.

During a tour of the airport and Customs areas at the new and old terminals, general manager of the Airports Authority, Hayden Newton, said the authority did not have uninhibited access to the customs bonded areas. In fact, he said, Airports Authority security officers had occasionally been detained by customs officers because they were said to be preventing the Customs officers from doing their jobs.

Airports Authority security officers also complained that they sometimes found some of the closed circuit television cameras in the northern terminal blocked or turned toward the ceiling or other areas where there was nothing to be seen.

The accusations were immediately denied by the comptroller of the Customs and Excise Division, Glen Singh, who was also on the tour.

Singh said he was not aware of the situation and would have to investigate.

The managers of the bonded areas involved also denied the charges and said the authority could have access to the camera feeds once it requested such access.

Hinds said, “In this world you need cross referencing, you need checks and balances, you need different organisations to be a check and balance on the next.” He said it was unthinkable that the security arm of the Airports Authority, which had the responsibility for security of the airport, ran into blind spots for whatever reason. He said it was a matter for concern and one the committee would pursue with rigour and vigour.” Speaking to Newsday following his tour of the airport and the Port of Point Lisas, Hinds said the committee still had a lot of questions and would tally all the questions and responses and make recommendations to Parliament as the committee was mandated to do.

He said he hoped the information the committee submitted would lead the Government ministers who were responsible for the various entities – in this case the Minister of Works and Transport – to use the information to fix the weaknesses and vulnerabilities which the committee might identify.

And, in so doing, make the ports more secure in the interests and security of the people of TT.

In response to a question, Hinds said he had seen lots of gaping loopholes in the security arrangements at the facilities the committee had visited but said he did not want to preempt the work of the committee before it had a chance to study the information collected during its visits.

“With these facts, we will put our minds and hearts together and come up with a picture of the situation,” Hinds said. “And on the basis of that picture, we will make our suggestions or recommendations.”