The Min­istry of Tourism, Cul­ture, and the Arts has worked close­ly with the Min­istries of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion, in the last year, to cre­ate a sys­tem that will cap­ture and cal­cu­late mem­bers of the di­as­po­ra vis­it­ing T&T.

This was an­nounced by act­ing Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary Videsh Ma­haraj dur­ing the Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee (JSC) on For­eign Af­fairs ti­tled An In­quiry in­to the Role of the Di­as­po­ra in Na­tion­al De­vel­op­ment.

“One of the things we re­alised that it’s lack­ing is re­al­ly da­ta on di­as­po­ra...it’s a lil un­for­tu­nate that the da­ta we get do not cap­ture the di­as­po­ra,” he said.

Ma­haraj said the min­istry’s de­ci­sion came af­ter the da­ta col­lect­ed by the Cen­tral Sta­tis­ti­cal Of­fice (CSO) through the Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty did not cap­ture in­for­ma­tion on mem­bers of the di­as­po­ra.

He said last Car­ni­val the CSO re­port­ed there were 29,000 vis­i­tors but the per­ma­nent sec­re­tary re­vealed that the count was in­ac­cu­rate.

“When we went in­to the im­mi­gra­tion di­vi­sion and we look at all the forms in terms of per­sons that are res­i­dents abroad...you had a fur­ther 12,000 per­sons com­ing in for that Car­ni­val pe­ri­od,” he said.

Ma­haraj said to get the num­bers of di­as­po­ra vis­i­tors for Car­ni­val 2024 he had to send staff to phys­i­cal­ly pull im­mi­gra­tion forms and count one by one.

“So it’s a very te­dious process...so the vis­i­tor ar­rival fig­ures for last year (all of 2024) were 319,775 non-na­tion­als that does not in­clude di­as­po­ra,” he said.

The per­ma­nent sec­re­tary said the ad­di­tion­al 12,000 vis­i­tors in­creased the vis­i­tors count for Car­ni­val 2024 to 41,000 vis­i­tors.

He said an an­nounce­ment on the sys­tem to cap­ture the di­as­po­ra will hap­pen soon, but he could not say when.

Al­so an­nounced dur­ing the JSC chaired by Dr Maria Dil­lon-Re­my was that the Min­istry of Tourism Cul­ture and the Arts was in­ves­ti­gat­ing the con­trac­tor’s work done on the Ari­api­ta Av­enue En­hance­ment Project which was com­plet­ed last year.

Ma­haraj said the con­trac­tor was in­formed and was or­dered to find a so­lu­tion.

“I know ex­act­ly the ex­am­ples you are re­fer­ring to in terms of per­sons slip­ping on the side­walks and what-not,” he said.

The min­istry hopes the new life­guard tow­ers at Las Cuevas and Mara­cas Beach­es will be com­plet­ed be­fore Car­ni­val.

“The min­istry is al­so pur­su­ing an au­to­mat­ic tick­et­ing sys­tem at the Mara­cas Beach Fa­cil­i­ty,” he said.