On Fri­day Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, Fitzger­ald Hinds chaired a meet­ing of the Na­tion­al Steer­ing Com­mit­tee for the Sea­port Cor­po­ra­tion Project (SEA­COP) Phase V.

Ac­cord­ing to a re­lease from the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, the meet­ing was co-chaired by Deputy Re­gion­al Co­or­di­na­tor for SEA­COP in the Caribbean re­gion, Com­man­der Ja­son Kelshall.

Head of Del­e­ga­tion of the Eu­ro­pean Union to Trinidad and To­ba­go, His Ex­cel­len­cy Pe­ter Cavendish, al­so present at the meet­ing, in­di­cat­ed that the EU stands ready to deep­en se­cu­ri­ty co­op­er­a­tion in the Caribbean re­gion.

Min­is­ter Hinds thanked His Ex­cel­len­cy Cavendish for his con­tin­ued sup­port to ini­tia­tives aimed at com­bat­ting transna­tion­al crime, in par­tic­u­lar the trans­ship­ment of il­lic­it nar­cotics, and wel­comed ad­di­tion­al co­op­er­a­tion.

The Min­istry said meet­ing dis­cus­sions in­clud­ed ad­di­tion­al sup­port to strength­en on­go­ing an­ti-drug traf­fick­ing op­er­a­tions, through the es­tab­lish­ment of part­ner­ships with ad­di­tion­al agen­cies and projects; the do­na­tion of mar­itime se­cu­ri­ty equip­ment; and suc­ces­sion plan­ning for in­ter-agency units cre­at­ed to op­er­a­tional­ize SEA­COP lo­cal­ly.

Al­so in at­ten­dance at the meet­ing were Vice Chief of De­fence Staff, Brigadier Gen­er­al Dex­ter Fran­cis; Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, Mrs. Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher; Deputy Chief Im­mi­gra­tion Of­fi­cer (Ag.) Ms. Mary Roseann St. Hill-Bil­louin; Deputy Comp­trol­ler of Cus­toms and Ex­cise, Mr. Bernard Nicholas; Head of the Na­tion­al Op­er­a­tions Fu­sion Cen­tre Lieu­tenant Colonel Dex­ter Metivi­er; and Deputy Di­rec­tor of the In­ter­na­tion­al Af­fairs Unit, Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, Ma­jor (Ret’d) Richard Lynch.

SEA­COP, a col­lab­o­ra­tive ini­tia­tive with the Eu­ro­pean Union (EU), was es­tab­lished in 2010 and is one di­men­sion of the wider Eu­ro­pean Com­mis­sion-fund­ed Co­caine Route Pro­gramme (CRP).