To­ba­go’s safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty were the fo­cus of talks be­tween Min­is­ter of De­fence Wayne Sturge and Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine yes­ter­day.

The meet­ing took place at the Of­fice of the Chief Sec­re­tary in Scar­bor­ough. Both men dis­cussed ways to strength­en To­ba­go’s se­cu­ri­ty frame­work, with spe­cial fo­cus on sup­port for the is­land’s de­fence bases.

The dis­cus­sion came at a time when many on the is­land have been rais­ing con­cerns about crime, bor­der pro­tec­tion, and the need for stronger se­cu­ri­ty sys­tems.

The Min­istry of De­fence and the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly agreed that clos­er col­lab­o­ra­tion is need­ed to give the is­land bet­ter pro­tec­tion.

In a state­ment af­ter the meet­ing, the Of­fice of the Chief Sec­re­tary said the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly is com­mit­ted to work­ing with the Min­istry of De­fence to im­prove safe­ty for all res­i­dents. The state­ment post­ed on Face­book said that stronger sup­port for To­ba­go’s de­fence bases will be a key part of this ef­fort.

It said the talks sig­nal that To­ba­go’s se­cu­ri­ty re­mains a top pri­or­i­ty, and that both the As­sem­bly and the cen­tral Gov­ern­ment in­tend to work to­geth­er to ad­dress the chal­lenges.