As the Trinidad and To­ba­go Coast Guard (TTCG) com­mis­sioned their two new Cape Class ves­sels yes­ter­day, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley urged the Coast Guard of­fi­cers to utilise the ves­sels prop­er­ly to cut down on hu­man traf­fick­ing and the il­le­gal gun trade.

Speak­ing dur­ing the com­mis­sion­ing cer­e­mo­ny at Staubles Bay, Ch­aguara­mas, the Prime Min­is­ter said the of­fi­cers have a du­ty to de­fend, own and ex­plore T&T’s in­ter­ests at sea from crim­i­nal el­e­ments. He said the hor­ren­dous ac­counts from lo­cal fish­er­men be­ing at­tacked and traf­fick­ing vic­tims are well-known.

“You are re­quired to dis­cour­age that. You would have seen the amount of firearms on our streets and the ef­fect that is hav­ing on our safe­ty and our se­cu­ri­ty, your first line of de­fence is the na­tion’s first line of de­fence. These are large crafts in so far as is­land na­tions are con­cerned but you car­ry on board the small­er ves­sels that can chase down and that can en­ter the coastal zones, make use of these fa­cil­i­ties, you have good tech­nol­o­gy to de­ter­mine who is around you, use it. You have good tech­nol­o­gy to strate­gise, to out­think, and to out­run, those who are bent on crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty- do that,” Row­ley said.

The two ves­sels- TTS Port-of-Spain and TTS Scar­bor­ough- were built by Aus­tralian ship­ping com­pa­ny Austal and part­ly fund­ed by the Aus­tralian Gov­ern­ment, as a part of a pro­gramme that as­sists is­lands with bor­der se­cu­ri­ty. Both ves­sels were de­liv­ered to T&T in Ju­ly. The ves­sels are equipped to car­ry 27 Coast Guard of­fi­cers and have the ca­pac­i­ty to car­ry 12 ad­di­tion­al peo­ple. They have a top speed of 20 knots and a 3,000 nau­ti­cal mile range.

Yes­ter­day, Row­ley re­called his in­ter­ac­tions with Coast Guard of­fi­cers when he vis­it­ed oth­er Caribbean is­lands for work. He said he was con­fi­dent that the fi­nan­cial in­vest­ment for the ves­sels was in the best hands.

He said the of­fi­cers on board these two ves­sels will be re­quired to pa­trol and se­cure a quar­ter of a mil­lion square kilo­me­tres- or 50 times the size of Trinidad- dur­ing their op­er­a­tions.

“Our men and women with the charge and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of pro­tect­ing the wa­ters, pro­tect­ing us from com­ers who would harm us, whether they are gun run­ners, hu­man traf­fick­ers, or con­tra­band spe­cial­ists, it is the Trinidad and To­ba­go Coast Guard that stand be­tween us and them. From time to time we suf­fer when we are pen­e­trat­ed but just re­mem­ber, it is not the eas­i­est of tasks and it is the largest of ar­eas,” he said.

The Prime Min­is­ter said the two ves­sels were now the ma­jor as­sets of the TTCG, al­low­ing the Coast Guard to have an ef­fec­tive pres­ence in the At­lantic Ocean.

To­ba­go not left out

And with just one week to go be­fore the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) elec­tion on De­cem­ber 6, Row­ley made spe­cial ref­er­ence to To­ba­go. Chief Sec­re­tary of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA), An­cil Den­nis was al­so present at the cer­e­mo­ny.

“The peo­ple of To­ba­go, par­tic­u­lar­ly East­ern To­ba­go, who have been feel­ing naked and ex­posed be­cause our flag have not been fly­ing as it should, our ves­sels have not been cruis­ing as they should, our pa­trols have not been stay­ing out at night as they should, we now have equip­ment that ad­dress those is­sues, so whether it is Char­lot­teville, whether it is Crown Point, whether it is Matu­ra, Blanchies­suse or Ica­cos they want to know that when they go to bed at night that you are out there, stand­ing be­tween us and those who would come to us with ill in­tent,” Row­ley said.

He said these ves­sels were spe­cial­ly de­signed for Aus­tralia’s bor­der pa­trol. Aus­tralia faces sim­i­lar prob­lems to T&T with porous bor­ders, he said.

The Prime Min­is­ter said he was ex­pect­ing “noth­ing but good news” from the use of these ves­sels.

“At this time, we are stretched for re­sources but we have pri­ori­tised our ex­pen­di­ture on these re­sources, so keep your com­plaints to your­self, make them work, it’s all that we have, it’s the best that we have and at­ti­tude sub­sti­tutes a long way for ab­sence of re­sources, that phrase that peo­ple use to ex­plain their lack of ini­tia­tive and their un­will­ing­ness to do hard work- of course that doesn’t ap­ply to the Coast Guard,” he said.

He told the se­nior of­fi­cers of the TTCG that they would have the Gov­ern­ment’s full sup­port to “dis­cour­age” those type of of­fi­cers from their ranks. He said those who re­main will rise to the top and de­liv­er as the “ex­pen­di­ture an­tic­i­pat­ed.”

The Prime Min­is­ter told the Coast Guard of­fi­cers they have been en­trust­ed with a very ‘spe­cial’ job.

“Those who would harm us on our wa­ters will not give us no­tice, they will ob­serve your com­ing and go­ing to de­ter­mine when they will de­ter­mine it is their time to en­ter, so you have to be on the job 24 hours a day, sev­en days a week, every day of the year,- when the rest of the na­tion is sleep­ing, when we are hav­ing Car­ni­val, when we are par­ty­ing, when we are hav­ing wed­dings, there are oth­ers on the out­side who are look­ing and that is pre­cise­ly when you will have to be on the job,” he said.

He said the TTCG would al­so have to work with their coun­ter­parts from oth­er Caribbean is­lands, Venezuela, the US and Aus­tralia. The Prime Min­is­ter al­so en­cour­aged the Coast Guard’s ex­ec­u­tive to re­cruit and train the best from the na­tion’s schools to take the ranks of the Coast Guard when they re­tire.

“We have tens of thou­sands of young peo­ple, many of whom will as­pire to wear the uni­form of the Coast Guard- se­lect wise­ly, se­lect care­ful­ly and smile when you do so, be­cause even as many coun­tries to­day are talk­ing about open­ing up their coun­try and their op­por­tu­ni­ties to women, tell them in Trinidad and To­ba­go, we were al­ways open to equal­i­ty of sta­tus in Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he said.

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, Faris Al-Rawi spoke to the me­dia af­ter the cer­e­mo­ny. He said the ves­sels were part of a phased ap­proach to prop­er­ly se­cure this coun­try’s bor­ders.

In Ju­ly, when the ves­sels were first brought to Trinidad, the Prime Min­is­ter said the Gov­ern­ment was in talks with Austal to cre­ate a main­te­nance hub in Trinidad. Al-Rawi gave an up­date on those plans, say­ing, “A spe­cial pur­pose com­pa­ny has been in­cor­po­rat­ed which was the old Cari dock as­set, there is an en­tire ship­yard fa­cil­i­ty there - gov­ern­ment is in dis­cus­sions with en­ti­ties that have ex­pressed in­ter­est there with the Aus­tralian gov­ern­ment as well as we look to bring­ing that Ch­aguara­mas Point in­to de­vel­op­ment, in­to ef­fect, as you are well aware, Gov­ern­ment has an arrange­ment with Chi­na as we look to the south of Trinidad and that project is mov­ing ahead quite quick­ly....so whether it’s oil and gas or just ship­build­ing and main­te­nance as­pects it’s firm­ly in gear.”

Al-Rawi said the five-month gap be­tween the ves­sels’ ar­rival and their com­mis­sion was to en­sure that the TTCG of­fi­cers were well trained and ca­pa­ble to use the ves­sels.

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds al­so ex­pressed his plea­sure with the com­mis­sion­ing of the ves­sels.

“For one thing, these ves­sels are able to re­main much longer on the job than oth­er ca­pa­bil­i­ties that we would have had and cer­tain­ly go to places where we don’t fre­quent or go to at all...this is on­ly a sig­nif­i­cant part of the arrange­ments, putting in place as we fo­cus be­cause as you know our bor­der con­trol and man­age­ment and se­cu­ri­ty is one of the high­est pri­or­i­ties the gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go but cer­tain­ly it is the high­est pri­or­i­ty for the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty,” Hinds said.

He said the Gov­ern­ment is al­so work­ing to­wards ac­quir­ing oth­er types of ves­sels to fit the coun­try’s se­cu­ri­ty needs.

Hinds said the TTS Scar­bor­ough will not be per­ma­nent­ly sta­tioned in To­ba­go.

“The ves­sel will be de­ployed all around Trinidad and To­ba­go...there are two ves­sels sta­tioned in To­ba­go, they will be main­tained and they will con­tin­ue to be there. We have the 360 radar sys­tem which pro­tects not on­ly Trinidad and To­ba­go but oth­er is­lands of the Caribbean that we have ex­tend­ed our pro­fes­sion­al ser­vices and fel­low Cari­com com­mit­tee with, so the ves­sel will not be sta­tioned in To­ba­go but it will cer­tain­ly be in the con­stant ser­vice of To­ba­go,” Hinds said.