Gail Alexan­der

The Gov­ern­ment is hold­ing its ground on the is­sue of the off­shore pa­trol ves­sels (OPVs), Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has said.On re­cent state­ments that the British Gov­ern­ment was step­ping in­to the is­sue con­cern­ing the firm of BAE and the Gov­ern­ment on the OPVs, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said any dis­cus­sions with the British were not to op­er­ate as a waiv­er. She said the Gov­ern­ment was will­ing to lis­ten and Cab­i­net would give con­sid­er­a­tion if the sit­u­a­tion was in T&T's in­ter­est. But she said the Gov­ern­ment was hold­ing to its po­si­tion.

She said any talks should be held with the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter and At­tor­ney Gen­er­al rather than her­self. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she would not be hold­ing talks on the is­sue dur­ing her UK trip next week since this was not ap­pro­pri­ate and she had in­formed the British High Com­mis­sion­er ac­cord­ing­ly. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the way out of the OPV con­tract would be via ar­bi­tra­tion rather than court ac­tion. One of the sug­ges­tions with­in Gov­ern­ment to re­place the off­shore pa­trol ves­sels is with small­er craft which are faster than ves­sels. She said small­er craft would be able to pa­trol around T&T bet­ter than the ves­sels which were de­signed for deep­er wa­ter.

She said the Gov­ern­ment may be get­ting US as­sis­tance for a re­view of its naval and air as­sets with the promise of tech­ni­cal help from the As­sis­tant US Sec­re­tary of State. She said Cab­i­net would de­lib­er­ate this morn­ing up­on At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan's terms of ref­er­ence for the Cli­co com­mis­sion on en­quiry. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the com­mis­sion would com­prise for­eign as well as lo­cal per­sons since in­de­pen­dent in­put could help.