The Min­istry of For­eign and CARI­COM Af­fairs says it has pro­vid­ed al­most US$206,000 (rough­ly TT$1.4 mil­lion) dur­ing Sep­tem­ber, in as­sis­tance to near­ly 300 T&T na­tion­als strand­ed abroad, be­cause of the closed bor­ders due to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

The Min­istry made the dis­clo­sure in a news re­lease is­sued to re­fute claims that it has not been do­ing enough to help strand­ed T&T cit­i­zens.

Ac­cord­ing to the Min­istry’s state­ment, Trinidad and To­ba­go Over­seas Mis­sions have main­tained con­tact with na­tion­als of this coun­try who were strand­ed over­seas when this coun­try’s bor­ders closed on 22nd March 2020.

The For­eign Min­istry notes that the Mis­sions al­so have pro­vid­ed hu­man­i­tar­i­an as­sis­tance to na­tion­als in the form of fi­nan­cial dis­burse­ments.

“The Trinidad and To­ba­go Mis­sions have been able to suc­cess­ful­ly dis­burse US$205,958.99 (TT$1,395,995.66) to 298 na­tion­als who sought as­sis­tance from the last week of Au­gust to the end of Sep­tem­ber 2020, un­der the in­struc­tions of the Min­istry of Fi­nance which pro­vid­ed the funds for the ini­tia­tive,” the For­eign Min­istry re­lease ex­plained.

“With spe­cif­ic ref­er­ence to the Unit­ed King­dom, the High Com­mis­sion dis­bursed the pound ster­ling equiv­a­lent of US$29,044.24 (TT$196,862.81) to na­tion­als whose ap­pli­ca­tions were ap­proved,” the Min­istry re­vealed.

The funds were dis­bursed via the fol­low­ing Mis­sions:

●  High Com­mis­sion of Trinidad and To­ba­go, Lon­don

●  Con­sulate Gen­er­al of Trinidad and To­ba­go, Mi­a­mi

●  Con­sulate Gen­er­al of Trinidad and To­ba­go, New York

●  Em­bassy of Trinidad and To­ba­go, Wash­ing­ton, D.C.

●  Con­sulate Gen­er­al of Trinidad and To­ba­go, Toron­to

The Min­istry al­so re­spond­ed to re­cent crit­i­cisms that au­thor­i­ties are not mov­ing fast enough to grant trav­el ex­emp­tions for those na­tion­als wish­ing to re­turn home.

“Re­quests for ex­emp­tion from bor­der clo­sure mea­sures re­ceived from Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­als at Trinidad and To­ba­go Mis­sions are brought to the im­me­di­ate at­ten­tion of the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, un­der whose re­spon­si­bil­i­ty the con­sid­er­a­tion and grant­i­ng of these ex­emp­tions fall,” the Min­istry ex­plained.

It added: “Na­tion­als are al­so guid­ed to ad­dress their re­quests for ex­emp­tion di­rect­ly to the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, and to sub­mit their ap­pli­ca­tions to the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty e-mail ad­dress ded­i­cat­ed for re­ceiv­ing re­quests for ex­emp­tion, trav­elex­emp­tion@mns.gov.tt.”

The Min­istry al­so re­newed its en­cour­age­ment to na­tion­als strand­ed over­seas due to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic to pro­vide their con­tact de­tails to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Mis­sion that is clos­est to their lo­ca­tion, to as­sist with ex­pe­dit­ing their re­quests for as­sis­tance.