OPPOSITION MP Dr Roodal Moonilal has shared his shock and displeasure that no scanners are working at the port. In fact, he believes gang leaders and drug lords now run things in this country.

He was speaking at the Opposition's press briefing in Port of Spain on Sunday morning.

During a sitting of a Parliament joint select committee on national security last Wednesday, there were major revelations of deficiencies at the Customs and Excise Division.

One such deficiency was that all scanners at the port were not working, so fewer than 4,000 shipping containers of the 23,000 imported into Trinidad and Tobago from January-August were inspected.

Any inspections done were manual.

Calling it a "bombshell revelation," Moonilal said when the UNC was in power, the party procured scanners, but, "Anytime the PNM is in power, the scanners don't work.

"Technology is very important if you're dealing with illegal entry, guns, ammunition, drugs and indeed human beings where you have human trafficking and so on...

"If you leave it to the PNM, they have no sense of technology. Their idea of screening is raising your hand and feeling around your arm and your waist...They are still in that age where you rub down somebody to look for gun."

On Saturday, Finance Minister Colm Imbert issued a press release saying TT examines five times more shipping containers than the US and ten times more than the European Union.

Moonilal asked Imbert if he was sure he wanted to make that comparison, given that "they (US and EU) have a different, sophisticated level of law enforcement."

He said they have at least four tiers of law enforcement so the comparison should not be made.

"The State of TT has been captured by drug lords, by gang leaders and by the political elite – high government officials

"We need scanners and we need to inspect more."

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