The fast fer­ry HSC Jean de la Valette has ar­rived safe­ly in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

The ves­sel docked at the Port of Port-of-Spain short­ly af­ter 8 am af­ter a jour­ney from Spain that start­ed last Fri­day.

A state­ment from NID­CO said the ves­sel will now un­der­go rou­tine in­spec­tion and clear­ance by Cus­toms and Ex­cise and the process of ac­quir­ing rel­e­vant ap­provals and train­ing of lo­cal staff as re­quired for the ves­sel’s op­er­a­tion will start.

The ves­sel is be­ing leased at a cost of 34,500 Eu­ros or TT$263,580 per day, was sourced from Mal­ta and leased from Vir­tu Fer­ries, whose man­ag­ing di­rec­tor Fran­cis Portel­li of the par­ent com­pa­ny Vir­tu Hold­ings had been named in a huge oil scan­dal in Mal­ta, in­volv­ing al­le­ga­tions of mon­ey laun­der­ing and bribery.

A crew from Mal­ta will op­er­ate the ves­sel.