Alexander: E-passport procurement underway, cost unknown

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der says the pro­cure­ment process for Trinidad and To­ba­go’s tran­si­tion to an elec­tron­ic pass­port sys­tem has be­gun, but he was un­able to pro­vide key de­tails about the project, in­clud­ing its cost, im­ple­men­ta­tion time­line and the num­ber of com­pa­nies in­volved in the ten­der­ing process.

The up­date came dur­ing yes­ter­day’s Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee ex­am­i­na­tion of the Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty’s al­lo­ca­tions in the 2027 na­tion­al bud­get, where Op­po­si­tion MPs ques­tioned whether the pro­posed up­grade would be com­plet­ed with­in the time­line pre­vi­ous­ly out­lined by the min­is­ter.

Dur­ing the ex­change, Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West MP Stu­art Young ques­tioned the ab­sence of fund­ing for the up­grade of the ex­ist­ing ma­chine-read­able pass­port sys­tem to an e-pass­port sys­tem.