An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

As the coun­try pre­pares for Mon­day’s 64th In­de­pen­dence Day cel­e­bra­tions, the heads of two key law en­force­ment agen­cies say they are ready to re­spond to any threat, with a re­cent se­cu­ri­ty as­sess­ment find­ing a “very low” threat lev­el for the na­tion­al event.

Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (CoP) Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro and Chief Fire Of­fi­cer (CFO) Andy Hutchin­son as­sured the pub­lic yes­ter­day that of­fi­cers are ful­ly pre­pared to han­dle any sit­u­a­tion that may arise.

Speak­ing at a me­dia brief­ing dur­ing re­hearsals for the In­de­pen­dence Day Mil­i­tary Pa­rade, to which on­ly state broad­cast­er TTT was in­vit­ed, Gue­var­ro said 222 po­lice of­fi­cers have been as­signed to the cer­e­mo­ni­al pa­rade. More than 400 ad­di­tion­al of­fi­cers will pro­vide sup­port ser­vices along des­ig­nat­ed routes through­out the day’s pro­ceed­ings.

This year’s cel­e­bra­tions have been ex­pand­ed to in­clude a cul­tur­al pa­rade im­me­di­ate­ly fol­low­ing the mil­i­tary pa­rade. The event will fea­ture mu­sic trucks, steel­pan and tas­sa per­for­mances, moko jumbies, and oth­er tra­di­tion­al Car­ni­val char­ac­ters cross­ing the pa­rade square.

The evening pro­gramme will be­gin at 5 pm with a cul­tur­al show­case at the Grand Stand of the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah in Port of Spain, fol­lowed by a silent fire­works dis­play.

Al­so ad­dress­ing the brief­ing, Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force (TTDF) Pub­lic Af­fairs Of­fi­cer Lt Com­man­der Sheron Man­swell re­vealed that, for the first time in the event’s his­to­ry, Chief of De­fence Staff Com­modore Don Po­lo will serve as pa­rade com­man­der.

Man­swell al­so con­firmed that Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo, as Com­man­der-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, will con­duct the pa­rade in­spec­tion, con­tin­u­ing the long-stand­ing tra­di­tion.

Gue­var­ro urged mem­bers of the pub­lic to take note of park­ing re­stric­tions around the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, which will be off lim­its from 6 am on Mon­day un­til 2 am on Tues­day.

He not­ed that a re­cent threat as­sess­ment pro­vid­ed re­as­sur­ance for the host­ing of the event.

“We just re­cent­ly con­clud­ed our threat as­sess­ment, and it has re­vealed a very low thresh­old, so thus we are com­fort­able with host­ing this event,” Gue­var­ro said.

“The pos­ture of the TTPS (Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice) for this en­tire In­de­pen­dence Day cel­e­bra­tion is one of pro­fes­sion­al­ism, vis­i­bil­i­ty and fa­cil­i­ta­tion.”

He added that the event demon­strat­ed the co­or­di­nat­ed ef­forts of all agen­cies un­der the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty um­brel­la, work­ing to­geth­er in the in­ter­est of the coun­try.

“This is one cel­e­bra­tion where all agen­cies un­der the rubric of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty have come to­geth­er as one uni­ty for one coun­try,” he said.

Jerome Lewis, of the Min­istry of Cul­ture, al­so en­cour­aged cit­i­zens to par­tic­i­pate in the fes­tiv­i­ties.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions about the re­cent wave of bomb threats that led to the evac­u­a­tion of sev­er­al courts, a shop­ping plaza and a num­ber of Gov­ern­ment agen­cies over the past week,

Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (DCP) Suzette Mar­tin, who is over­see­ing op­er­a­tions and serv­ing as Gold Com­man­der for this year’s event, said se­cu­ri­ty forces re­main vig­i­lant.

“We take all threats se­ri­ous­ly, and we are work­ing on those in­ves­ti­ga­tions at this time,” Mar­tin said.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Mar­tin said op­er­a­tional plans would be ad­just­ed if cir­cum­stances re­quired.

“If for In­de­pen­dence, we are re­quired to ad­just our op­er­a­tional pos­ture, we will do so. We are ready!”

The re­cent threats have al­so placed ad­di­tion­al strain on the T&T Fire Ser­vice (TTFS), which re­mains on height­ened alert.

Hutchin­son ex­pressed con­cern that prank calls were di­vert­ing re­sources from gen­uine emer­gen­cies.

“They are di­vert­ing crit­i­cal as­sets that can be used to re­spond to oth­er gen­uine calls,” he said.

“It may com­pro­mise the lives of per­sons who re­al­ly need it.”

Nonethe­less, Hutchin­son as­sured the pub­lic that should any cred­i­ble threat emerge, emer­gency ser­vices stand ready to re­spond.

“If it is lead­ing up to some­thing, we are ready,” he said.