Pe­ter D Nep­tune

Trade Min­is­ter Mar­i­ano Browne lashed out at what he called in­ac­cu­rate re­port­ing by an­oth­er dai­ly news­pa­per, which crit­i­cised the high in­vest­ment the Gov­ern­ment was mak­ing in the four he­li­copters to pa­trol the na­tion's bor­ders and to sup­port drug in­ter­dic­tion.

Browne, who sat on the com­mit­tee with over­sight in the pro­cure­ment process for the he­li­copters, said con­trary to the state­ments made in the news­pa­per ed­i­to­r­i­al, the Gov­ern­ment pur­sued a rig­or­ous se­lec­tion and ten­der­ing process that in­clud­ed in­put and ad­vice from a US con­sul­tant with ex­pe­ri­ence in procur­ing sim­i­lar equip­ment for the US and oth­er gov­ern­ments.

Apart from Browne who rep­re­sent­ed the Min­istry of Fi­nance, the pro­cure­ment com­mit­tee com­prised oth­er gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, in­clud­ing the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter and top rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the armed forces. He said the re­port was in­ac­cu­rate in many ways in that the suc­cess­ful bid­der for the con­tract was the US-based com­pa­ny Au­gus­ta-West­land, and not an Ital­ian sup­pli­er. "The he­li­copters will not cost $2.1 bil­lion, but will ac­tu­al­ly cost US$93.5 mil­lion or TT$589 mil­lion, less than quar­ter of the fig­ure quot­ed in the ed­i­to­r­i­al," Browne said.

"The re­main­der of the cost will in­clude train­ing for 136 pi­lots, spare-parts, main­te­nance and the de­vel­op­ment of sup­port fa­cil­i­ties to ac­com­mo­date the new equip­ment af­ter it ar­rives. "The con­tract re­quires the sup­pli­ers to pro­vide up to sev­en years train­ing and sup­port for the new air­craft. "All this mon­ey will not be paid at once to the sup­pli­er, and much of it will go to­wards oth­er sup­port sys­tems and ser­vices need­ed for the he­li­copters.

"The pay­ment for those air­craft will be ac­count­ed for in the up­com­ing na­tion­al bud­get while the oth­er two air­craft will be de­liv­ered in 2011, and will be al­lo­cat­ed in that year's bud­get."

Pro­vid­ing some spec­i­fi­ca­tions of the air­craft, Browne said each would have a troop car­ry­ing ca­pac­i­ty of 15 and would have a pay­load of up to 1500 kg.

The air­craft would have a range of 522 nau­ti­cal miles, he added. "The he­li­copters are not at­tack he­li­copters as re­port­ed in the me­dia, they are de­signed to ac­com­mo­date am­mu­ni­tion, so it can be flex­i­ble enough to deal with the types of in­ter­dic­tion and law en­force­ment sce­nar­ios that we are like­ly to face both on land and over the ocean," Browne said.