Tighter guard

Security at the Bridgetown Port will soon be dramatically tightened, Fort Knox-style!

Chairman of Port Senator Lisa Cummins has revealed that with a state-of-the-art scanner soon to be installed along with approximately 500 CCTV cameras and a 24-hour dedicated command centre and with a K9 unit with ammunition and sniffing dogs already in place, security at Bridgetown’s main port of entry will be significantly boosted.

She made the declaration over the weekend while speaking at the Barbados Labour Party’s (BLP) 81st annual general conference which was held in Queen’s Park.

“We are aware that there have been some concerns and the Attorney General has been in constant contact and the Prime Minister, in her role as the national security chairman. We are in the process of completing installation on a new scanner which is going to take us to 100 per cent scanning,” Cummins disclosed.

“The new scanner is going to be lifted into that facility on October 28 and the team from the security company will be on hand here in Barbados and we will have that operational thereafter in a few weeks once we have put up the radiation fences and everything around it. But we are committed to ensuring that we protect border security.”

Cummins said the CCTV system, the command centre and the new canine unit would bolster security at the Bridgetown Port like never seen before.

“We are in the process of rolling out CCTV coverage throughout the Port. Close to 500 cameras are expected to be installed by the time the project is completed and we are well underway. We have also purchased and they are here already in service, ammunition sniffing dogs as well as those who take responsibility for organic material. There is a fleet of four new dogs and they are already working in the Port in collaboration with the Royal Barbados Police Force.

“We have also installed a state-of-the-art command centre in the Bridgetown Port. It is manned on a 24-hour basis by teams comprising the Barbados Port, the Royal Barbados Police Force, the Customs Department and the Barbados Defence Force. The cameras will feed into that command centre and every scan will be interpreted in real time in less than six seconds by personnel in that command center which is already operational,” Senator Cummins explained.

“We went from having no new scanners purchased for six years to having a fully operational command centre, one fully running scanner and a new one about to be installed and we will have a third scanner during the course of the next financial year,” she further added.