The rush to se­cure Cer­tifi­cates of Good Char­ac­ter for re­cruit­ment dri­ves by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice, the Air Guard, the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force and oth­er state agen­cies has once again ex­posed long­stand­ing pro­cess­ing prob­lems at the San­gre Grande Po­lice Sta­tion, where se­nior of­fi­cers say on­ly one ma­chine is avail­able to han­dle hun­dreds of ap­pli­ca­tions.

Of­fi­cers told Guardian Me­dia that ap­pli­cants from San­gre Grande and sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ties are now be­ing joined by peo­ple from Ari­ma be­cause there is no ma­chine avail­able at the Ari­ma Po­lice Sta­tion.

On Tues­day, ap­pli­cants queued from the sta­tion’s charge room on­to the main road, many car­ry­ing their doc­u­ments in brown en­velopes as they wait­ed to be­gin the ap­pli­ca­tion process.