Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der has con­firmed that the new po­lice posts be­ing set up across the coun­try will op­er­ate 24 hours a day and that peo­ple tak­en to them will not be de­tained there.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Alexan­der said the fa­cil­i­ties will in­stead be used as op­er­a­tional bases where po­lice and De­fence Force per­son­nel will work joint­ly and where peo­ple can be in­ter­viewed when nec­es­sary.

Asked specif­i­cal­ly whether peo­ple would be de­tained at the posts, Alexan­der was un­equiv­o­cal.

“In­ter­view, yes. Not de­tained,” he said.

Alexan­der, how­ev­er, stopped short of say­ing how many of­fi­cers will be as­signed to each lo­ca­tion.He said that de­ci­sion will be based on the strate­gic as­sess­ment of the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (CoP) and Chief of De­fence Staff (CDS).

“The num­ber of per­sons, that will de­pend on the CoP TTPS and the De­fence Force CDS strate­gic eye­sight,” he said.

The clar­i­fi­ca­tion comes amid grow­ing ques­tions about the pur­pose, cost and pro­cure­ment of the fa­cil­i­ties be­ing con­struct­ed across the coun­try.

The Gov­ern­ment has been es­tab­lish­ing the new po­lice posts as part of its broad­er se­cu­ri­ty strat­e­gy, with the fa­cil­i­ties in­tend­ed to in­crease the pres­ence of po­lice and De­fence Force per­son­nel in com­mu­ni­ties.

On Mon­day, Alexan­der said the roll­out of the posts was on course to be com­plet­ed with­in the stip­u­lat­ed four-month pe­ri­od.

He al­so main­tained that the posts are a pub­lic safe­ty mech­a­nism and dis­missed crit­i­cism sur­round­ing their con­struc­tion.

“There are no is­sues oth­er than the one that is cre­at­ed by those who are against pub­lic safe­ty,” he said.

But when asked di­rect­ly whether Unit­ed States se­cu­ri­ty per­son­nel could join lo­cal of­fi­cers at the posts, Alexan­der de­clined to pro­vide a de­fin­i­tive an­swer, in­stead sug­gest­ing the pub­lic may have to wait and see.

But while Alexan­der has now pro­vid­ed some de­tails about how the posts will func­tion, the Op­po­si­tion is de­mand­ing an­swers about the con­struc­tion con­tracts.

At a Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment me­dia brief­ing yes­ter­day, Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral MP Symon de No­bri­ga ques­tioned who was award­ed the con­tract for the 30 po­lice posts, whether the same con­trac­tor is re­spon­si­ble for all of them, how much the project is cost­ing and how the con­tract was award­ed.

De No­bri­ga said the ques­tions are par­tic­u­lar­ly im­por­tant be­cause pub­lic mon­ey is be­ing spent on the works.

“Who is the con­trac­tor that has been award­ed this con­tract for that po­lice post, for the 30 po­lice posts? Is it the same con­trac­tor? What is the val­ue of the con­tract, and by what method has this con­tract been award­ed, and is it in keep­ing with pub­lic pro­cure­ment reg­u­la­tions?” he asked.

The Op­po­si­tion MP al­so claimed ve­hi­cles and equip­ment bear­ing the name of what he de­scribed as the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ pre­ferred con­trac­tor have been seen at the sites.

De No­bri­ga ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of avoid­ing straight­for­ward ques­tions about the project and said the in­for­ma­tion should be made pub­lic.

“These ques­tions need to be ad­dressed for the pub­lic’s knowl­edge. These are pub­lic funds be­ing ex­pend­ed on pub­lic works,” he said.

He al­so chal­lenged any sug­ges­tion that na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty con­sid­er­a­tions should pre­vent Gov­ern­ment from dis­clos­ing de­tails about the con­tracts.

“There is noth­ing in­volved in these works that would pre­clude the Min­is­ter from di­vulging this in­for­ma­tion,” De No­bri­ga said.