Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath says threats against his life will not pre­vent him from car­ry­ing out his pub­lic du­ties or at­tend­ing com­mu­ni­ty events, stress­ing that the in­creased se­cu­ri­ty around him was ini­ti­at­ed by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) and not re­quest­ed by him.

Padarath made the com­ments in re­sponse to crit­i­cism over his con­tin­ued at­ten­dance at pub­lic events, in­clud­ing a World Cup fi­nal view­ing, af­ter re­ports emerged that his se­cu­ri­ty de­tail had been in­creased due to cred­i­ble threats.

He said the de­ci­sion to en­hance his se­cu­ri­ty fol­lowed an as­sess­ment by the TTPS Spe­cial Branch and was linked to both the of­fice he holds and in­ves­ti­ga­tions con­nect­ed to mat­ters un­der his min­istry.