Yvonne Ba­boolal

The Gov­ern­ment is com­ing with a "vir­tu­al­ly im­pen­e­tra­ble" Naval Op­er­a­tional Plan which will be a ma­jor de­ter­rent to the il­le­gal en­try of drugs, weapons, and im­mi­grants in­to T&T, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said yes­ter­day. The PM made the an­nounce­ment as she de­liv­ered the fea­ture ad­dress at the com­mis­sion­ing of two Au­gus­ta West­land 139 he­li­copters at the Air Guard Unit at Pi­ar­co Air Sta­tion, Pi­ar­co. The Pi­ar­co Air Sta­tion al­so was re­named the Ul­ric Cross Air Sta­tion af­ter Cross, a World War 11 vet­er­an.

"The he­li­copters will have the pow­er­ful eyes, at day or night, around our is­land to act as a sup­port el­e­ment for the Coast Guard in the pa­trolling of our bor­ders. "This will en­sure, not just a ma­jor de­ter­rent to stop the il­le­gal drug trade and il­le­gal en­try of weapons and im­mi­grants, but al­so pro­vide the much need­ed as­sis­tance cit­i­zens are plead­ing for when fish­er­men are at­tacked by pi­rates," The Prime Min­is­ter said. The he­li­copters were part of the pack­age which was sup­posed to come with the Off­shore Pa­trol Ves­sels (OPVs) which were part of the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion's na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty plans. The Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment scrapped the OPV plan when it came in­to pow­er in May last year.

How­ev­er, last Oc­to­ber, the Air Guard Unit was giv­en the au­tho­ri­sa­tion to re­sume the medi­um twin tur­bine he­li­copter pro­gramme.

The Gov­ern­ment ac­quired the he­li­copters from Au­gus­ta West­land Inc. The two mul­ti-pur­pose he­li­copters would be in­volved in the mul­ti-pronged naval op­er­a­tional plan, the PM said. She added: "They will pa­trol our shore­lines and work along­side Coast Guard in­stal­la­tions and in­ter­cep­tor ves­sels pa­trolling our wa­ters. "In ad­di­tion, there will be six fast pa­trol crafts and a long range pa­trol ves­sel pa­trolling the north and east coasts." She said the PP Gov­ern­ment saved bil­lions of dol­lars when it scrapped the OPVS, which, she said, could be used for more crit­i­cal and pro­duc­tive na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty as­sets. The de­ci­sion in­volved guid­ance from high­ly-qual­i­fied ex­perts, in­clud­ing sev­er­al pre­vi­ous and present high- rank­ing De­fence Force of­fi­cers and in­ter­na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty con­sul­tants, the PM said. It was ad­vised that there would nev­er be a need for an ar­ma­da of three OPVs to fight the drug trade in an is­land of this size, she added.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said it was rec­om­mend­ed that a more ap­pro­pri­ate naval plan be used. Mon­ey saved from the OPVs would go to­ward a naval op­er­a­tional plan, she added. The PM said the new plan would in­volve at least 12 Coast Guard in­stal­la­tions strate­gi­cal­ly placed around the is­land. Fast pa­trol in­ter­cep­tors would be as­signed to each in­stal­la­tion, en­sur­ing that the coun­try was "prop­er­ly locked down." "This could not have been done by one OPV sim­ply pa­trolling 100 miles off our east coast," she said. Fur­ther, the in­stal­la­tions would be sup­port­ed by six larg­er fast pa­trol crafts, as­signed to var­i­ous bases, such as Ga­le­o­ta and To­ba­go and a long range ves­sel pa­trolling 12 to 200 miles from most­ly the north and east coasts. The 360-de­gree radar, in­stalled by the pre­vi­ous gov­ern­ment, would fi­nal­ly be­come ef­fec­tive as the Radar Cen­tre would have the au­thor­i­ty to vec­tor the in­ter­cep­tors to any tar­get, she added.

There would be com­mu­ni­ca­tion link­age with the rel­e­vant po­lice units near­est to the Coast Guard in­stal­la­tions and all would be un­der the um­brel­la of a soon-to-be im­ple­ment­ed Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Op­er­a­tional Cen­tre, the PM said.