Ministers urge public to be vigilant for counterfeit currency

DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­[email protected]

From crime pre­ven­tion to coun­ter­feit cur­ren­cy and beach safe­ty, au­thor­i­ties say the Car­ni­val long week­end will be close­ly mon­i­tored and those who break the law should ex­pect con­se­quences.

The warn­ing came from Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der and De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge dur­ing a me­dia con­fer­ence at the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion’s VIP Lounge at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day.

With the Pa­rade of the Bands just days away, Alexan­der said se­cu­ri­ty forces are pre­pared.

“For those who in­tend, again, to break the law, the con­se­quences is yours to bear,” he warned.

Sturge re­in­forced that mes­sage, cau­tion­ing that of­fend­ers could spend the hol­i­day be­hind bars.

“Those who wish to mis­be­have, we are pre­pared for you, and you have a choice, you ei­ther be­have your­self and en­joy the mer­ri­ment or we can pro­vide, over the long week­end, state-fund­ed ac­com­mo­da­tions and I don’t think the meals are great.”

Both min­is­ters said the Gov­ern­ment wants cit­i­zens to cel­e­brate, but with­in the law.

Alexan­der not­ed that the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice will be de­ployed in large num­bers, sup­port­ed by the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force. Ac­cord­ing to Sturge, the TTDF is back to full op­er­a­tional strength and will be work­ing along­side the In­ter-Agency Task Force.

Alexan­der di­rect­ed a warn­ing to gang mem­bers, say­ing law en­force­ment of­fi­cers are there to pro­tect law-abid­ing cit­i­zens.

“The po­lice of­fi­cers, ac­com­pa­nied by mem­bers of the De­fence Force, they are not here to sti­fle the ri­val­ry. They must be seen as a pro­tec­tive mech­a­nism de­signed to pro­vide just that—pro­tec­tion for all.”

Au­thor­i­ties are al­so urg­ing vig­i­lance over coun­ter­feit cur­ren­cy cir­cu­lat­ing dur­ing the busy sea­son.

“We are see­ing some false cur­ren­cies float­ing around. So those who pur­chas­ing and those who get­ting change, we ask you to pay at­ten­tion to the mon­ey. Ex­am­ine it more close­ly. And if you’re in doubt, do not ac­cept,” Alexan­der said.

Mean­while, Sturge said Cab­i­net on Thurs­day ap­proved the ex­pan­sion of life­guard ser­vices to se­lect­ed pre­vi­ous­ly un­manned beach­es, though he did not pro­vide fig­ures on the in­crease in man­pow­er.

The move fol­lows grow­ing num­bers of peo­ple vis­it­ing coastal sites and the re­cent drown­ing of 17-year-old Gabriel Nel­son at Grand La­goon.

Beach­es iden­ti­fied for ex­pand­ed cov­er­age in­clude Grand La­goon, Bon­nasse Point, Ba­lan­dra Bay and Tyri­co Bay, as well as ar­eas along the Ma­yaro coast­line.

Sturge said life­guard re­serves were called out from Thurs­day through next week. He said ad­di­tion­al sup­port has been pro­vid­ed by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Coast Guard, with small­er naval as­sets de­ployed to pa­trol east­ern and south­east­ern wa­ters, in­clud­ing Moru­ga. Three jet skis were al­so ac­quired to as­sist along the Ma­yaro coast.

De­spite the added re­sources, the De­fence Min­is­ter urged cau­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly for those mix­ing al­co­hol with swim­ming.

“It’ not just mer­ri­ment, it’s may­hem. Al­co­hol will im­pair your judge­ment, al­co­hol will make you do things that you wouldn’t or­di­nar­i­ly do. And you might want to be a hero and then you lose your life in the process.”

He added, “Al­though there’ll be an in­crease in the num­ber of life guards and we’ll have as­sis­tance from the Trinidad and To­ba­go Coast Guard and we’ll have jet skis and pa­trols and all that, we beg that you, nonethe­less, those of you who go to the beach, prac­tice wa­ter safe­ty. Be­cause when a cur­rent pulls you un­der, if the jet ski doesn’t get to you in two min­utes or three min­utes max, what is a search and res­cue would be­come a re­trieval.”

Sturge al­so warned against iso­lat­ing one­self in re­mote ar­eas.

“If you are alone away from the crowd, you ex­pose your­self to rob­bery, per­haps rape, per­haps worse.”

Mean­while, Cul­ture Min­is­ter Michelle Ben­jamin en­cour­aged cit­i­zens to pa­tro­n­ise Car­ni­val events at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, in­clud­ing the Fla­va Food Vil­lage, where Machel Mon­tano gave a free con­cert last night.

She said the ini­tia­tive is part of Gov­ern­ment’s ef­forts to keep Car­ni­val ac­ces­si­ble to all, not­ing that more than 300,000 peo­ple have al­ready vis­it­ed the Sa­van­nah this sea­son.

She said Di­manche Gras, sched­uled for to­mor­row, will ho­n­our cul­tur­al icon Mighty Spar­row, wide­ly known as the Ca­lyp­so King of the World. The North Stand will be free to pa­trons for that event, as well as on Car­ni­val Mon­day and Tues­day, when spec­ta­tor turnout is tra­di­tion­al­ly low­er.