Airports not meeting security standards –Benn

Participants at the seminar (Ministry of Public Works photo)

Guyana’s international airports, the Cheddi Jagan International Airport (CJIA), Timehri and the Ogle International Airport “are not meeting the minimum standards” on security, Minister of Public Works Robeson Benn says.

“It is important that we lift the security profile at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport and Ogle Aerodrome,” Benn said at the opening ceremony for the Airport Risk Mitigation workshop yesterday. According to a press release from the ministry, Benn told the 25 plus participants that a dispassionate review of the airports’ (CJIA and Ogle) security status indicates that “we are not meeting the minimum standards.”

Over the years, there have been numerous attempts to smuggle drugs inclusive of cocaine and marijuana to both overseas and interior locations at the two airports.

In May, two airport loaders as well as a police dog handler, accused of concealing cocaine in the vent of the luggage hold of an outgoing Caribbean Airlines flight, were remanded to prison after being charged with narcotics possession for trafficking. The cocaine amounted to 2.2 kilos. There have been many other cases.

“We do not yet accorded with, mitigated to, the threats we are faced with…we need to take a hard look at ourselves,” the minister said,