Five of eight ves­sels im­pound­ed dur­ing last year's state of emer­gency in ex­er­cis­es aimed at clamp­ing down on the il­le­gal sale of sub­sidised diesel, have been found to be in con­tra­ven­tion of laws re­lat­ing to the use of diesel with­in Trinidad and To­ba­go wa­ters.

Ac­cord­ing to in­for­ma­tion from the Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy Af­fairs, the ves­sels were in­spect­ed by per­son­nel from the Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion, the Mar­itime Ser­vices Di­vi­sion and the Fish­eries Di­vi­sion. "The Mar­itime Ser­vices Di­vi­sion in­spect­ed three ves­sels which fall un­der its ju­ris­dic­tion and found struc­tur­al mod­i­fi­ca­tions which the own­ers were or­dered to con­vert to their orig­i­nal spec­i­fi­ca­tions," the Min­istry said in a me­dia re­lease. "The own­ers of the ves­sels had been re­quest­ed to make the ap­pro­pri­ate ad­just­ments as or­dered by the Mar­itime Ser­vices Di­vi­sion. To date, two of the ves­sels' own­ers have com­plied and one is in the process of do­ing so.

"The Fish­eries Di­vi­sion in­spect­ed six of the ves­sels that fell with­in its ju­ris­dic­tion (which had been ap­proved for fish­ing) and found a num­ber of struc­tur­al mod­i­fi­ca­tions. As such they, too, will be tak­ing ap­pro­pri­ate ac­tion." The Min­istry, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Cus­toms and Ex­cise, Mar­itime Ser­vices, the Fish­eries Di­vi­sion and the Coast Guard, is con­tin­u­ing to mon­i­tor the sit­u­a­tion with the aim of elim­i­nat­ing the sale and ex­port of sub­sidised diesel. Ac­cord­ing to the re­lease, these ef­forts have start­ed to achieve pos­i­tive re­sults as the sale of sub­sidised diesel fell by 15 per cent be­tween Sep­tem­ber and No­vem­ber 2011, re­sult­ing in a sav­ings of over $90 mil­lion in sub­si­dies.