An in­te­grat­ed Air Unit is ex­pect­ed to be in­tro­duced in the coun­try’s na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus soon.

This was re­vealed by Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Stu­art Young who was re­spond­ing to ques­tions posed by Guardian Me­dia Lim­it­ed about the state of the Na­tion­al Air Guard.

The min­is­ter said it was no se­cret that the Cab­i­net took a de­ci­sion in 2017 that it could no longer af­ford the $200 mil­lion bill at­tached to the Au­gustaWest­land he­li­copters pur­chased by the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship ad­min­is­tra­tion.

"The cost of main­te­nance and the cost of the use of these he­li­copters had be­come too much and the Trea­sury could no longer af­ford it and we took a de­ci­sion to ground these he­li­copters."

The min­is­ter said the de­ci­sion re­sult­ed in a deficit in the sys­tem, but they have been work­ing to ad­dress the gaps.

He said he has been in talks with the Chief of De­fence Staff, the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, and the Di­rec­tor of the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agen­cies to find the best op­tion to en­sure se­cu­ri­ty isn’t com­pro­mised but that they al­so get val­ue for tax­pay­ers.

"I in­tend to go to Cab­i­net very short­ly to ask for the ap­proval of he­li­copters for an air unit that will be manned pre­dom­i­nant­ly by the Air Guard."

Young added that the as­sets will be avail­able to var­i­ous arms of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus. "...If the De­fence Force needs to use it, they can, if po­lice need to use the as­sets, they can use it, if oth­er op­er­a­tions need to use it, they can use it. The as­sets will be based in Cu­mu­to, that is the think­ing right now. But it will be as­sets that all three arms of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty can tap in­to. That will be the best val­ue for mon­ey for Trinidad and To­ba­go".

Young said that the res­ig­na­tions from the Air Guard were not a sur­prise, be­cause the num­ber of as­sets has dwin­dled.

"The pi­lots are go­ing to move on, they're not go­ing to stay and twid­dle thumbs, they have li­cens­ing re­quire­ments etc, so it’s no sur­prise he­li­copter pi­lots are leav­ing."

He is as­sur­ing the pop­u­la­tion that the air sur­veil­lance isn’t com­prised, "This is not a pan­ic sit­u­a­tion, the Air Guard is not com­plete­ly de­plet­ed."

He re­vealed that the Prime Min­is­ter has been in com­mu­ni­ca­tion with al­ly coun­tries seek­ing as­sis­tance in the mat­ter.