Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley says T&T’s bor­ders will now be more se­cure with the ar­rival of two Cape Class Coast Guard ves­sels from Aus­tralia. The Prime Min­is­ter was speak­ing at the launch of the ves­sels in Staubles Bay, Ch­aguara­mas this morn­ing.

The two ves­sels can hold 27 Coast Guard of­fi­cers- with ad­di­tion­al space for 12 more peo­ple. Both were built by the Aus­tralian ship­ping com­pa­ny, Austal, and were part­ly fund­ed by the Aus­tralian Gov­ern­ment.

The Prime Min­is­ter said with the ves­sels’ ad­vanced ca­pa­bil­i­ties- which in­clude their abil­i­ty to do sur­veil­lance up to 3,000 nau­ti­cal miles, those who wish to en­ter the coun­try il­le­gal­ly or bring in guns and drugs will now have a much hard­er time do­ing so.

Row­ley said the Gov­ern­ment is al­so in talks with Austal to cre­ate a ship main­te­nance hub in T&T which can serve not on­ly the Coast Guard but pri­vate cit­i­zens in T&T and the wider Caribbean. He said this hub will as­sist T&T in di­ver­si­fy­ing its econ­o­my.