Minister for National Security and Home Affairs, Honourable Rayburn Blackmoore said a new training school will be built for the police. The minister informed that the design phase is currently ongoing.
“For this new financial year, we are simply waiting for the engineering element of the design for a new training school at Morne Bruce. Already we have demolished the old building and of course we will be actually training new police recruits, including women, because I do not think we can build a modern police force by only training men alone. We have to include the women in that process Mr. Speaker,” Honourable Blackmoore.
Minister Blackmoore says the community policing initiative will be enhanced. He says the presence of the police should be felt especially in the city.
“We will also see emphasis on a new thrust in the police force to build community. We got hampered because of covid, but we will continue in our attempt to have a more comprehensive community policing program. We really need to see more police officers on the street, especially traffic police. Our traffic police officers are provided with cellphones with a specialized app where they can download the traffic ordinance right there on the street Mr. Speaker. We have to take control of the street, because there are too many vehicles parking on the sidewalk in Roseau and the police have to get this right going forward,” he explained.
In this financial year thirteen million dollars will be spent to improve and upgrade border management system in Dominica. The service of biometric passports will also be introduced in this fiscal year.
“That is important for a number of reasons. One to cultivate a watch list so that persons of interest, before they reach to our borders, we can be told that they are coming to Dominica; and for the purpose of passenger information, as well as cargo that in itself will be very important. It will also be important for secondary inspection, because we will be able to take people’s fingerprints at our borders in Dominica. The most important aspect in our border security improvement is our migration from the machine readable passport to our e-passport or biometric passport which is almost counterfeit proof. And that Mr. Speaker, in March of 2021, we will be moving to a new biometric passports in Dominica and Dominica will be the only country, except for the Bahamas to have those improved passports in the Caribbean, and that is development Mr. Speaker,” the National Security Minister noted.
Provisions are also being made for the relocation of the registry inclusive of the court to the public service training building.
“I am very happy that one million dollars is provided so we can now house our Masters Court, our Civil Court, our Criminal Court, our computer technology, and all of these are various components that are critical for the operation of the court and they will be housed. And I want to thank the Minister for Finance for making this money available for our courts,” Honourable Blackmoore added.