GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Se­nior mul­ti­me­dia re­porter

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

Com­mit­ment to health, safe­ty, se­cu­ri­ty and the en­vi­ron­ment is not just a reg­u­la­to­ry re­quire­ment – it’s a moral oblig­a­tion.

This from US Am­bas­sador to T&T Can­dace Bond who de­liv­ered the fea­ture ad­dress while speak­ing at AM­CHAM T&T’S 27th an­nu­al Health, Safe­ty, Se­cu­ri­ty and En­vi­ron­ment (HSSE) Con­fer­ence, which was held at the Hy­att Re­gency on Tues­day.

“It’s im­por­tant to keep in mind that across all of these top­ics, one thing we can al­ways take for grant­ed is that the world is con­stant­ly evolv­ing. This means that each of us, and our or­gan­i­sa­tions, must adapt, in­no­vate and pri­or­i­tize the well-be­ing of our work­ers, our com­mu­ni­ties, and our plan­et,” Bond told the con­fer­ence at­ten­dees.

She al­so not­ed ar­eas of health, safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of her em­bassy’s work with the Gov­ern­ment and with oth­er or­gan­i­sa­tions say­ing this rec­og­nized that “our ties, shared hemi­sphere and com­mon val­ues mean that the health, safe­ty, and se­cu­ri­ty of Trin­bag­on­ian cit­i­zens af­fect the health, safe­ty, and se­cu­ri­ty of US cit­i­zens, and the re­verse is al­so true.

“It is why we worked hard to de­liv­er COVID-19 vac­cines as the pan­dem­ic im­pact­ed our peo­ple and our economies,” Bond added.

The US Am­bas­sador ap­plaud­ed the ef­forts pi­o­neered by AM­CHAM T&T, such as es­tab­lish­ing its rule-of-law com­mit­tee and join­ing with oth­er cham­bers and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the pri­vate sec­tor to sup­port the Gov­ern­ment’s ef­forts to ad­dress crime and cor­rup­tion.

“A key ob­jec­tive for our em­bassy is more ef­fec­tive, de­mo­c­ra­t­ic, and ac­count­able Gov­ern­ment in­sti­tu­tions, and it’s just one more area where we are aligned in cre­at­ing the con­di­tions that make T&T an at­trac­tive place for for­eign cap­i­tal, that we all know is crit­i­cal to both spurring eco­nom­ic growth and de­liv­er­ing on the Gov­ern­ment’s ef­forts at eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion,” Bond added.

Speak­ing on oth­er is­sues, she not­ed that dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion and in­no­va­tion are es­sen­tial for free mar­ket com­pe­ti­tion.

“We have all seen how dig­i­tal tools help tra­di­tion­al busi­ness­es grow, stay con­nect­ed, and com­pete around the world,” Bond said, adding that these tools change and evolve rapid­ly.

In this vein, she ad­vised that poli­cies as it re­lates to cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty need to be con­stant­ly ex­am­ined.

“...We al­so know that as in­dus­tries strive to keep up with rapid tech­no­log­i­cal changes, cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty poli­cies need to be in­te­grat­ed in­to the de­ci­sions that or­gan­i­sa­tions make to suc­ceed and thrive.

“Tech­no­log­i­cal ad­vance­ments im­prove our every­day lives, en­able so­cial in­clu­sion, im­prove ac­cess to gov­ern­ment ser­vices, and can ad­vance the over­all well-be­ing of so­ci­ety. But to tru­ly har­ness tech­nolo­gies’ trans­for­ma­tive po­ten­tial, it is im­por­tant that we al­so con­front cy­berthreats and take mea­sures that en­sure the safe­ty of our da­ta and our cus­tomers’ in­for­ma­tion,” she ad­vised.

She al­so as­sured that the US is com­mit­ted to work­ing with the Gov­ern­ment, part­ners, and friends in the pri­vate sec­tor, to sup­port a dy­nam­ic and more se­cure dig­i­tal and telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions in­fra­struc­ture.