Two re­fur­bished in­ter­cep­tors have been as­signed to To­ba­go as the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty take steps to tight­en the coun­try's bor­ders. Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Stu­art Young for­mal­ly com­mis­sioned one of these ves­sels at the Char­lottesville Jet­ty on Wednes­day.

He said the in­ter­cep­tors, the larg­er Dea­mon ves­sel and a radar sys­tem will be used to im­prove se­cu­ri­ty along T&T's bor­ders.

"These two in­ter­cep­tors are the first of 14 the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty in­tends to re­fur­bish for use by the coun­try's Coast Guard and it is crit­i­cal that we get the oth­er twelve in­ter­cep­tors up and run­ning, that we will be fa­cil­i­tat­ing the North Coast, on the south coast as well as the Gulf," Young said

He added: "The sit­u­a­tion seems to be wors­en­ing Venezuela and as a re­sult of that we have a lot of im­mi­gra­tion is­sues but if we can se­cure the Gulf area to pre­vent per­sons from com­ing in that would be bet­ter for us."

Ac­cord­ing to the min­is­ter, the in­ter­cep­tors are ide­al for treat­ing with pira­cy and oth­er il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties. He said his min­istries cur­rent­ly work­ing on en­sur­ing the E999 cen­tre is ful­ly op­er­a­tional.

"We are work­ing to have the tech­nol­o­gy so that any­body any­where in Trinidad and To­ba­go, or even on our seas once it's in our ter­ri­to­r­i­al wa­ters, can call the E999 and their call will be di­rect­ed to the nec­es­sary re­spon­sive body."

The two in­ter­cep­tors in To­ba­go will be sta­tioned off Char­lot­teville and Scar­bor­ough.