Ani­ka Gumbs-San­di­ford

This coun­try's coastal bor­ders re­main vul­ner­a­ble as the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty faces chal­lenges to get ap­proval from the Gov­ern­ment for ac­qui­si­tion of Long Range Pa­trol Ves­sels (LR­PV). Sun­day Guardian un­der­stands that the min­istry is yet to re­ceive pro­pos­als re­gard­ing the ves­sels that are ex­pect­ed to re­place the Ocean Pa­trol Ves­sels (OPV) to boost mar­itime se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures. "The prob­lem we are fac­ing is while the Gov­ern­ment is mov­ing to ac­quire these new ves­sels the sup­pli­ers are not fa­mil­iar with the name LR­PV. We have passed the re­quest for in­for­ma­tion stage but we are fac­ing prob­lems with sup­pli­ers for these par­tic­u­lar ves­sels.

"The fact is if we do not have these ves­sels that are sim­i­lar to the OPVs the bor­ders are not ful­ly pro­tect­ed. These ves­sels take ap­prox­i­mate­ly 18 to 30 months to man­u­fac­ture, so apart from the name, we are fac­ing oth­er chal­lenges," a top se­cu­ri­ty in­tel­li­gence source re­vealed. Re­spond­ing to a text mes­sage yes­ter­day, Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty John Sandy con­firmed that pro­pos­als are out­stand­ing. "With re­spect to the LR­PVs we are yet to re­ceive for­mal pro­pos­als," Sandy stat­ed. The set­back comes at a time when the hunt is on for a ship­ment of high-pow­ered sniper ri­fles that al­leged­ly went miss­ing at sea weeks be­fore a pur­port­ed as­sas­si­na­tion plot against Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and three Cab­i­net mem­bers sur­faced.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors are yet to de­ter­mine whether the sniper ri­fles were to be used in car­ry­ing out the threat. A wire­less mon­ey trans­fer is said to be the source of funds al­leged­ly used to fi­nance the ship­ment of the cache of high pro­file sniper ri­fles. Gov­ern­ment took a de­ci­sion to can­cel the OPVs or­der claim­ing that the ves­sels bore de­fects and the con­tract agree­ment was de­layed. The PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion had ne­go­ti­at­ed an up­grade in liq­ui­dat­ing dam­ages to the tune of £60 mil­lion to £90 mil­lion for the de­lay in the con­trac­tu­al agree­ment. How­ev­er, Gov­ern­ment opt­ed to scrap the deal. It was in June, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced that the na­tion would be pro­tect­ed by 12 Coast Guard sta­tions to in­clude LRVPs, coastal radar and he­li­copters. The ves­sels, the Prime Min­is­ter said, are to be 60 to 70 feet long and be able to pa­trol from 12 to 200 miles off the coast of north and east Trinidad.

Dis­band­ing of the Strate­gic Man­age­ment Pro­gramme Unit al­so caus­es de­lay Sun­day Guardian has fur­ther learnt that a de­ci­sion to dis­band the Strate­gic Man­age­ment Pro­gramme Unit has cre­at­ed fur­ther de­lay. The unit was set up to over­see ac­count­abil­i­ty and trans­paren­cy in the pur­chase of large strate­gic mil­i­tary as­sets. "The pur­pose of this unit is to man­age long-term con­trac­tu­al agree­ments of mil­i­tary as­sets to en­sure val­ue for mon­ey. We have to deal with con­tracts in both the pre and post stages of ac­qui­si­tion," the se­cu­ri­ty in­tel­li­gence source dis­closed.

Re­fer­ring to an in­ci­dent re­gard­ing the two new Au­gus­ta West­land (AW)139 he­li­copters the in­tel­li­gence source said, on­ly re­cent­ly the unit had to be­come in­volved af­ter one of the he­li­copters was dam­aged. "The he­li­copters re­quired a par­tic­u­lar type of in­fra­struc­ture which had to do with con­struct­ing a spe­cif­ic type of con­crete ramp. Peb­bles from the con­crete mix­ture re­mained on the ramp and got in­to the en­gine of one of the he­li­copters and as a re­sult it now has to be re­paired. It is in in­stances like these where the con­tracts need to be man­aged," the mem­ber of the se­cu­ri­ty in­tel­li­gence unit point­ed out.