The United States Embassy in Port-of-Spain is donating three mobile X-ray scanners at a cost of US$2-$5 million to the T&T Customs and Excise Division. This announcement was made when the embassy's Customs and Border Protection Office hosted a seminar entitled "New technologies for 21st-century border enforcement" at the Hyatt Regency in Port-of-Spain on Thursday.
British High Commissioner Arthur Snell, Comptroller of Customs and Excise Fitzroy John and T&T Defence Force representatives were among those present. Beatrice Welters, in her final act as US ambassador, presented the exchangeof documents for the scanners to John, who apologised for the absence of Finance and the Economy Minister Larry Howai.
"In this integrated world where more goods and people are moving faster than ever before, countries need to know who is crossing their borders and what goods are entering and exiting their ports. The documents we have relied on for years can be tampered with or forged. Imposters and lookalikes can use legitimate, but stolen, documents to pass through border security. New methods are needed," Welters said.
Roxanne Hercules of the US Customs and Border Protection Office said mobile and stationery scanners would be donated in a three-phase basis. "Right now they are (Customs and Excise) looking at tenders for mobile scanners and we are donating the mobile scanners so they can start right away and they can do a pilot test to develop their base lines for the new scanners that they are looking at purchasing," Hercules said.
She said the equipment is able to scan the containers in seconds and would allow for a more efficient management of traffic through customs. She said the mobile X-ray scanners would be tested at either Pt Lisas or at the Port-of-Spain docks.
John said Customs and Excise has moved away from manual documentation to electronic filing.
At the seminar, Dr Ruben Krishnamurthy of the University of Westminster and Clive Blackwell from the University of London discussed issues relating to biometrics, new technologies for border enforcement, new technology systems and security threats.