RHON­DOR DOWLAT-ROS­TANT

The T&T Gov­ern­ment has ap­proved the pur­chase of two Cape-class pa­trol boats to in­crease bor­der se­cu­ri­ty and safe­guard the coun­try's mar­itime do­main.

This was re­vealed on Mon­day by Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, Fitzger­ald Hinds MP, dur­ing his ad­dress at the T&T De­fence Force (TTDF) pass­ing out cer­e­mo­ny of new re­cruits, which took place at the Tetron Bar­racks in Ch­aguara­mas.

Hinds said the pa­trol boats "will strength­en the ca­pac­i­ty of the T&T Coast Guard."

"These ves­sels will be join­ing the Coast Guard fleet soon­er rather than lat­er, and I give you the as­sur­ance that project will not be abort­ed to your trau­ma and to the dis­ser­vice of the peo­ple of T&T," Hinds said.

The Cape class is a ship class of 10 large pa­trol boats op­er­at­ed by the Ma­rine Unit of the Aus­tralian Bor­der Force and Roy­al Aus­tralian Navy. The ves­sels are built by Austal and cost some US$38.6 mil­lion.

Min­is­ter Hinds al­so dis­closed that the gov­ern­ment is seek­ing to fa­cil­i­tate the rein­te­gra­tion of one of the AW139 he­li­copters back in­to ser­vice, to pro­vide es­sen­tial air sur­veil­lance sup­port to the coast guard, as well as any oth­er aer­i­al op­er­a­tional re­quire­ments "in sup­port of the busi­ness of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty."

Hinds al­so not­ed that the re­lo­ca­tion of two com­pa­nies of the Sec­ond In­fantry Bat­tal­ion of the T&T Reg­i­ment (TTR) from the he­li­port in Ch­aguara­mas to Camp La Ro­maine is ex­pect­ed to be com­plet­ed by 31st May 2021.

The over­all project com­pris­es the con­struc­tion of five build­ings with the to­tal floor space of 1,300 square me­ters for ap­prox­i­mate­ly 700 sol­diers.

"This project is part of the larg­er de­vel­op­ment plan for Camp La Ro­maine, which will al­low for the TTR to have at any time a force that can as­sist in pro­vid­ing much need­ed se­cu­ri­ty to the ex­posed South­ern Penin­su­la, as well as this coun­try’s oil and gas as­sets," Hinds said.

"The Min­istry has been pur­su­ing a whole of gov­ern­ment ap­proach to treat with the is­sues that con­front us. In that re­gard, the ser­vice to your coun­try will be ex­e­cut­ed with­in nu­mer­ous strate­gic op­er­a­tions and du­ties, no­tably the TTDF, which con­tin­ues to pro­vide the op­er­a­tional sup­port to the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) in the fight against crime on the blocks, on the streets, and in the com­mu­ni­ties around T&T," he added.

He ad­vised the new re­cruits that many of them, new mem­bers of the Reg­i­ment, will be called up­on to join in the TTPS for in­ter-agency op­er­a­tions, which are de­signed to pro­vide a greater sense of se­cu­ri­ty and com­fort to the peo­ple of those com­mu­ni­ties through­out the coun­try.

"The Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, which has strate­gic over­sight of the De­fence Force, will con­tin­ue to pro­vide un­wa­ver­ing sup­port as we con­tin­ue to work to­geth­er to pro­vide pro­tec­tion and safe­ty and sta­bil­i­ty in this twin is­land Re­pub­lic," Hinds said.

"Our cur­rent na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty en­vi­ron­ment is dy­nam­ic and ever chang­ing and calls for as­tute lead­er­ship. Crime is Transna­tion­al in na­ture, de­fy­ing all bor­ders.  The threat is no longer sole­ly an ex­ter­nal one and armed forces the world over are be­ing called to aug­ment and tai­lor ex­ist­ing strate­gies to meet new and evolv­ing threats. In this re­gard, the TTDF has ex­pand­ed its tra­di­tion­al role of de­fend­ing our coun­tries bor­ders from ex­ter­nal threats to al­so treat with in­ter­nal threats such as ter­ror­ism, hu­man traf­fick­ing, cy­ber­crime, and nat­ur­al dis­as­ters," he added.

The Min­is­ter en­cour­aged the new re­cruits to be pro­fes­sion­al at all times, be­cause they are be­ing held to a high­er stan­dard.

"As you ex­e­cute your du­ties, grad­u­ates, I en­cour­age you all at all times hence­forth, to op­er­ate pro­fes­sion­al­ly, to be ac­count­able and to en­sure that you are able as in­di­vid­u­als, as of­fi­cers of this proud force to with­stand pub­lic scruti­ny pri­vate or pub­lic. You must—as well as the de­mands of cit­i­zens, the de­fence force, and the gov­ern­ment—put your train­ing in­to prac­tice for greater ben­e­fit of your col­leagues your or­ga­ni­za­tion and your coun­try."

Hinds al­so com­mend­ed the med­ical staff of the TTDF for their ex­per­tise and their in­ge­nu­ity for the im­ple­men­ta­tion and man­age­ment of the med­ical bio bub­ble to which the train­ing staff and re­cruits were made to con­form.

“The ex­e­cu­tion of that in­fra­struc­ture en­sured that there was no con­t­a­m­i­na­tion with­in the bio bub­ble which re­sult­ed in the proud record that not one sin­gle COVID-19 case was made man­i­fest through­out the du­ra­tion of the train­ing process," the min­is­ter not­ed.

He added: "It al­so en­sured that the de­vel­op­ment and work of the TTDF de­fied the beast of COVID-19 and con­tin­ued your work and your train­ing un­abat­ed—no easy or mean feat!—and again I salute you, giv­en how that virus works and giv­en the na­ture of your mil­i­tary train­ing and the way you do your work. This is no small feat, but I'm not sur­prised, the TTDF re­mains the biggest Na­tion­al se­cret in terms of your record, your ca­pac­i­ty and your ca­pa­bil­i­ties as in­di­vid­u­als and as a force."