Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young says his Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty’s is com­mit­ted to work­ing with the Trinidad and To­ba­go Coast Guard (TTCG) to en­sure that the or­gan­i­sa­tion ful­fills its re­spon­si­bil­i­ties, stat­ing that the Coast Guard has to use mod­ern se­cu­ri­ty equip­ment and tech­nol­o­gy in the ex­e­cu­tion of its im­por­tant man­date.

The Min­is­ter gave this as­sur­ance as he de­liv­ered the fea­ture ad­dress at the Pass­ing-Out Pa­rade for the TTCG 55th Re­cruit In­take, held at Teteron Bar­racks in Ch­aguara­mas on Sat­ur­day.

The min­is­ter con­grat­u­lat­ed the 91 re­cruits on the suc­cess­ful com­ple­tion of their in­duc­tion train­ing and wel­comed them in­to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Coast Guard.

He not­ed that the most valu­able re­source of any or­ga­ni­za­tion is its peo­ple and de­scribed the re­cruits as the Coast Guard’s key and cru­cial re­source.

The min­is­ter urged the re­cruits to up­hold their in­tegri­ty in the ex­e­cu­tion of their du­ties and to be mod­el of­fi­cers of whom the coun­try will be just­ly proud.

Min­is­ter Young took the op­por­tu­ni­ty to thank all the men and women of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Coast Guard for their ded­i­cat­ed and self­less ser­vice, in the pro­tec­tion of the na­tion’s bor­ders, even in the face of re­cent un­fair crit­i­cism and at­tacks.

He said the Gov­ern­ment will con­tin­ue to ad­vance ef­forts in en­hanc­ing bor­der se­cu­ri­ty.

Ac­cord­ing to the min­is­ter, ini­tia­tives be­ing pur­sued in this re­gard in­clude the up­grade of this coun­try’s radar sys­tem, the pro­cure­ment of two Cape Class ves­sels, the up­grade of fa­cil­i­ties and in­fra­struc­ture at the Coast Guard head­quar­ters, and the re­fur­bish­ment of 14 Coast Guard In­ter­cep­tors which is ex­pect­ed to be com­plet­ed in the com­ing weeks.

Al­so ad­dress­ing the re­cruits, Com­mand­ing Of­fi­cer of the TTCG Cap­tain Dou­glas Archer ad­vised them to al­ways ex­em­pli­fy the Coast Guard’s core val­ues of dis­ci­pline, strength of char­ac­ter, ho­n­our, ac­count­abil­i­ty, re­spect, pro­fes­sion­al­ism and ethics.

Archer re­mind­ed the re­cruits that it is the Coast Guard’s du­ty to en­sure that the bor­ders of Trinidad and To­ba­go are de­fend­ed.

Dur­ing the Pass­ing Out Pa­rade the Coast Guard re­cruits put on a drill dis­play, demon­strat­ing with pre­ci­sion, the tac­tics en­com­passed in their in­duc­tion train­ing.

Re­ceiv­ing the award for ‘Best Fe­male Re­cruit’ of the 55th In­take was Re­cruit Theophilus, K and the awardee for ‘Best Male Re­cruit’ was Re­cruit Richard­son, G.

Al­so present to con­grat­u­late the Coast Guard re­cruits at the Pass­ing Out Pa­rade were Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary of the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Vel Lewis and Act­ing Chief of De­fence Staff Colonel Darn­ley Wyke.