SHAR­LENE RAM­PER­SAD

UK Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment Steve Bak­er has is­sued an ap­peal to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Gov­ern­ment to repa­tri­ate its cit­i­zens strand­ed in the UK.

Speak­ing in the UK Par­lia­ment on Wednes­day, Bak­er (MP for Wycombe) said there are T&T cit­i­zens in his con­stituen­cy who have been burn­ing through their sav­ings, as they des­per­ate­ly await repa­tri­a­tion.

T&T's bor­ders have been closed since the end of March, and thou­sands of cit­i­zens who were caught out­side when the lock­down went in­to ef­fect have been ap­peal­ing for an ex­emp­tion to come home.

While the repa­tri­a­tion process is on­go­ing, many of those who are strand­ed say it is not go­ing quick­ly enough.

Some have been strand­ed for over six months.

Bak­er, when giv­en his op­por­tu­ni­ty to put ques­tions to the min­is­ters from the For­eign, Com­mon­wealth and De­vel­op­ment Of­fice (FC­DO), asked what was be­ing done to as­sist T&T cit­i­zens strand­ed in the UK.

"I've got Trinidad and To­ba­go res­i­dents or cit­i­zens in my con­stituen­cy burn­ing through their sav­ings, re­al­ly ter­ri­fied about fail­ing to get home to pro­tect their homes and busi­ness­es from ap­proach­ing se­vere weath­er. Can I ask the Min­is­ter to join me in call­ing on Trinidad and To­ba­go to make sure their cit­i­zens get home? I think it’s our com­mon hu­man­i­ty to en­able peo­ple to re­turn home to pro­tect their homes," Bak­er said.

In her re­sponse, Min­is­ter for Eu­ro­pean Neigh­bour­hood and the Amer­i­c­as at the FC­DO, Wendy Mor­ton MP, ad­vised strand­ed cit­i­zens to con­tact the T&T High Com­mis­sion­er in Lon­don:

"The FC­DO has alert­ed the Trinidad and To­ba­go High Com­mis­sion to cas­es of strand­ed Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­als that we have been made aware of, and sug­gest­ed af­fect­ed in­di­vid­u­als con­tact the High Com­mis­sion di­rect­ly.”

It is al­so im­por­tant to say that we are in reg­u­lar con­tact with our coun­ter­parts in Trinidad and To­ba­go," Min­is­ter Mor­ton said.

(This is a de­vel­op­ing sto­ry and it will be up­dat­ed as more in­for­ma­tion comes to hand.)