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Grenade scare at Income Tax Department

GeneralGrenade scare at Income Tax Department
“There is a person in a white shirt, black cap, coming to the Income Tax on the second floor with two grenades” – this was the message that the secretary of the Income Tax Department got around 10:00 this morning when she answered a call from a man.
  
When police came, the Charles Bartlett Hyde Complex Building was quickly evacuated.
  
This is the second time for this year alone that the building’s security system has been challenged by criminals.
  
Amandala today spoke with the Assistant Commissioner of the Income Tax Department who explained that at this point, it is still unclear if the call that her secretary received was a warning or a threat: “We don’t know if it was a warning for us,” she said.
  
“The secretary was shaken up,” additionally noted the Assistant Commissioner.
  
The department quickly contacted the police who arrived with a group of Belize Defence Force soldiers, who contacted the different departments within the building and informed them to leave their posts and exit the building.
  
The building, which is located on Mahogany Street, is home to four large Government departments: Income Tax, Passport Office, GST and Agriculture Cooperative.
  
Amandala was told that a truck load of BDF and police arrived and started searching the building.
  
Although none of the department officials ever conducted an evacuation drill, the Assistant Commissioner explained that the exodus was relatively calm and took an estimated five minutes.
    
“Everyone got out smoothly,” she said, adding that everyone was told to return for 1:00 p.m.
  
After returning to work, the general sentiment from workers was, “They were okay, just a little shaken still,” said the Asst. Commissioner.
  
The closing down of business on this day was not something easy to do because today is the 15th of the month, which is the deadline for Income Tax and GST payments.
  
“We still can’t figure out why this happened,” we were told.
           
When asked about possibly updating the security for the building itself, the Assistant Commissioner responded, “I am writing to the Financial Secretary, explaining that we should look into increasing the security measures in this building.”
  
A suggestion worth considering is installing an alarm system that could be triggered by a button to alert individuals to evacuate, and even doing some evacuation drills.
  
“Once you could maybe brush it off, but these days, you have to take these warnings very seriously,” she ended.
  
On May 25, 2010, the Income Tax Department was invaded by a single individual, still unknown to police, who entered through the buzz door located on the documentation section of the department. The man walked through and back out undetected by officials.
  
The individual was able to steal a laptop and a hand-held game from the office of the Supervisor of the Income Tax Department, Kent Clare.
  
Even though the building has security guards, employees from the different departments have been expressing their desire to see even better security measurements taken to lessen the likelihood of this reoccurrence.
  
“This is a wakeup call for us; things need to change. People coming and going in this building should be documented,” an employee told us.

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