Chief Sec­re­tary of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) Far­ley Au­gus­tine has said that the THA is mov­ing to fi­nan­cial­ly as­sist in mat­ters of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, al­though it is not an area over which the THA has re­spon­si­bil­i­ty ac­cord­ing to the Fifth Sched­ule of the THA Act.

Among them, he said ef­forts are un­der­way to pro­vide pub­lic lands for a new cor­rec­tion­al fa­cil­i­ty on the is­land.

He made the promise while de­liv­er­ing the THA Bud­get on Thurs­day.

“We will give agreed-up­on acreage to Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty at no cost so

that a prop­er fa­cil­i­ty can be built,” he said.

He ex­plained that he vis­it­ed the To­ba­go pris­ons re­cent­ly and by the next day a de­ci­sion had been tak­en to re­move all of To­ba­go in­mates and take them to Trinidad.

“Not a sin­gle word was said to the af­fect­ed fam­i­lies. Most like­ly, that was a se­cu­ri­ty de­ci­sion. Giv­en the state of the fa­cil­i­ty we have at Scar­bor­ough, we have com­mit­ted to send­ing a team from the Di­vi­sion of In­fra­struc­ture to do some up­grad­ed works so that our non-vi­o­lent in­mates can be re­turned to the is­land. There is a so­cial cost to not hav­ing our pris­on­ers re­ha­bil­i­tat­ed at home. Have we count­ed the cost to fam­i­lies? Have we con­sid­ered the cost of hav­ing our To­ba­go sons and daugh­ters and youths in­doc­tri­nat­ed in­to more se­ri­ous crim­i­nal­i­ty?”

He added that he al­so vis­it­ed the Scar­bor­ough Fire Sta­tion and de­cid­ed to take up the cost of $300,000 that is need­ed to com­plete works there. “This con­tri­bu­tion will be forth­com­ing with­in a few weeks,” Au­gus­tine said.

He told the As­sem­bly that he al­so vis­it­ed the mil­i­tary base - Camp Sig­nal Hill - and it was clear “that na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty does not care about To­ba­go’s se­cu­ri­ty”.

“I have giv­en the com­mit­ment that a team from In­fra­struc­ture will vis­it with a view of com­plet­ing their dorms so that our To­ba­go sons and daugh­ters won’t have to work and sleep in squalor. I have had

a re­cent meet­ing with the Chief of De­fence Force, who is try­ing his best

notwith­stand­ing the con­straints,” he said.

“Al­though na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty isn’t in the fifth sched­ule. To­ba­go’s se­cu­ri­ty is very much our busi­ness,” he added.

Au­gus­tine added that the Coast Guard op­er­a­tional base along­side the fish­ing de­pot in Scar­bor­ough was in need of new toi­let fa­cil­i­ties and fa­cil­i­ties to house women of­fi­cers.

He said the de­sign and scope were be­ing com­plet­ed by the De­part­ment of In­fra­struc­ture.

“It should al­so be not­ed that this Ex­ec­u­tive is not the first one to give this kind of as­sis­tance to the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus. I will make the point again: we can­not want more au­ton­o­my and not want more re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.”

Au­gus­tine said the po­lice sta­tion in Scar­bor­ough will al­so get as­sis­tance in re­pair­ing their dorms.