CoP welcomes interactive system from US embassy

The system will also allow officers from south Trinidad to access training at the San Fernando Divisional headquarters without having to travel to St James.

The donation was part of a series of events to mark the historic one-day relocation of the US Embassy to the Southern Academy for the Performing Arts (SAPA), corner Todd’s Street and Rienzi- Kirton highway, San Fernando yesterday.

Speaking at the handing- over ceremony, the US Embassy’s acting political/economic chief and security policy and assistance co-ordinator Dina Abba-Ogley said the system was part of the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative (CBSI) between the United States and Caricom states.

“The United States has funded over $441 million since 2010, so this is part of the CBSI Connect system, part of our donation and total collaboration with the police service,” she said.

“And I want to congratulate Mr Williams and the police academy because they were deemed a regional centre of excellence recently and they will be training everyone in the region from the police academy.” Speaking with reporters afterwards, Williams said TT had been designated a centre of excellence at a formal two-day workshop earlier in the week and the St James police academy had received the “necessary support by way of equipment, the training and the facilitation of our instructors for the purposes of delivering this online training.

“The United States government has effectively facilitated the Caribbean region with what is referred to as CBSI Connect, and this is a system of online training facilities across the region so that training can take place simultaneously in regional locations – the academies across the Caribbean region can all have training taking place simultaneously,” he said.

“Since 2010 to now, the training hasn’t been regional. What was happening was that the US Embassy would arrange a training – let’s say cyber- crime investigations – they will arrange a training at the police academy and they will invite officers from Suriname, Jamaica, Bahamas, whatever area, and it would be a high-cost item to bring all this officers down to Trinidad at the Police Academy, St James. It involves issues around accommodation and travel.

But with this facility, in Bahamas, at their police academy, they will be able to receive training without their officers having to leave Bahamas,” Williams said.

“This is positive, this is tremendous, we always need to look at Trinidad and Tobago in different ways. In this particular instance one way you can look at Trinidad and Tobago is as a leader which stands out, facilitating training for the entire Caribbean region and that’s positive for us.”