The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice’s (TTPS) over­time bill has reached a lev­el that de­mands close pub­lic scruti­ny. Be­tween Jan­u­ary 2024 and Au­gust 2026, the TTPS spent al­most $794 mil­lion on over­time claims, av­er­ag­ing $24.8 mil­lion a month. In the first eight months of 2026 alone, over­time ex­pen­di­ture climbed to $283.18 mil­lion, about 50 per cent high­er than for the same pe­ri­od in 2025. If that pace con­tin­ues, the an­nu­al bill could ex­ceed $424 mil­lion.

The fig­ures raise an ob­vi­ous ques­tion: is the coun­try get­ting the most ef­fec­tive use of its polic­ing re­sources?

The in­crease can­not be viewed in iso­la­tion. Much of 2026 was spent un­der a State of Emer­gency, with po­lice of­fi­cers shoul­der­ing ex­pand­ed re­spon­si­bil­i­ties linked to crime-fight­ing op­er­a­tions. Ex­tend­ed de­ploy­ments, check­points, pa­trols and emer­gency en­force­ment mea­sures in­evitably place ad­di­tion­al de­mands on per­son­nel. Of­fi­cers un­der­tak­ing long hours in dif­fi­cult and of­ten dan­ger­ous cir­cum­stances de­serve fair com­pen­sa­tion for their ser­vice.

That re­al­i­ty, how­ev­er, does not ex­empt the TTPS or the Gov­ern­ment from ac­count­abil­i­ty. Pub­lic re­sources are fi­nite. Over­time spend­ing ap­proach­ing a quar­ter of an­nu­al per­son­nel costs re­quires care­ful ex­am­i­na­tion to en­sure that ex­pen­di­ture is dri­ven by op­er­a­tional ne­ces­si­ty rather than or­gan­i­sa­tion­al in­ef­fi­cien­cy.

This ques­tion be­comes even more im­por­tant fol­low­ing the procla­ma­tion of the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Act, 2026. The leg­is­la­tion es­tab­lish­es sev­en polic­ing dis­tricts and al­lows des­ig­nat­ed lo­ca­tions to be de­clared closed ar­eas. Main­tain­ing se­cu­ri­ty cor­dons, re­strict­ing ac­cess, ver­i­fy­ing per­mits and en­forc­ing the law in these ar­eas will re­quire sus­tained po­lice de­ploy­ment. Ad­di­tion­al du­ties, in­clud­ing man­ag­ing body-worn cam­era footage, de­ten­tion records and le­gal com­pli­ance pro­ce­dures, will fur­ther in­crease op­er­a­tional de­mands.

Such re­spon­si­bil­i­ties make ef­fec­tive plan­ning es­sen­tial.

The ex­pe­ri­ence of the 2026 State of Emer­gency should al­ready have high­light­ed the im­por­tance of ef­fi­cient re­source man­age­ment. Re­ports that more than 2,000 peo­ple were de­tained with­out charges dur­ing the emer­gency pe­ri­od raised con­cerns about pro­cess­ing sys­tems and op­er­a­tional ef­fi­cien­cy. As the Gov­ern­ment em­barks on a new phase of se­cu­ri­ty op­er­a­tions, it must en­sure those short­com­ings are not re­peat­ed.

The pub­lic has every right to ask whether in­creased spend­ing is pro­duc­ing mea­sur­able im­prove­ments in pub­lic safe­ty. Over­time can­not be­come the de­fault so­lu­tion to staffing, de­ploy­ment or or­gan­i­sa­tion­al chal­lenges. Nor should spe­cial pow­ers be viewed as a sub­sti­tute for sound man­age­ment prac­tices.

The Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice must en­sure that staffing plans are ev­i­dence-based, shifts are ef­fi­cient­ly man­aged, hours worked are prop­er­ly record­ed and over­time claims rig­or­ous­ly ver­i­fied. At the same time, the Gov­ern­ment must in­sist on trans­par­ent re­port­ing that al­lows tax­pay­ers to as­sess whether ad­di­tion­al ex­pen­di­ture is de­liv­er­ing mean­ing­ful re­sults.

The coun­try’s se­ri­ous crime prob­lem re­quires de­ci­sive ac­tion. But ef­fec­tive­ness and ac­count­abil­i­ty must go hand in hand. Every ad­di­tion­al dol­lar spent on polic­ing should be jus­ti­fied by ne­ces­si­ty, sup­port­ed by prop­er over­sight and linked to demon­stra­ble gains in pub­lic safe­ty.

The ob­jec­tive is not sim­ply to spend more, but to po­lice smarter.