An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro says a con­tract for the pro­vi­sion of 3,000 body cam­eras was scrapped due to in­flat­ed costs.

He made the com­ment dur­ing a me­dia brief­ing at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, Port-of-Spain, on Fri­day, as he ad­dressed the is­sue of the ac­qui­si­tion of body-worn cam­eras and bul­let-proof vests for of­fi­cers.

The can­cel­la­tion of the $24.9 mil­lion con­tract was con­firmed by Min­is­ter of Home­land Af­fairs Roger Alexan­der dur­ing last Fri­day’s Sen­ate sit­ting. Alexan­der said the con­tract, which was award­ed in 2024 for 3,000 body cam­eras, was ter­mi­nat­ed in or­der to save mon­ey.

Ad­dress­ing the scrapped con­tract, Gue­var­ro said re­search led him to re­alise the cam­eras could be sourced at a much low­er price than the TTPS had been quot­ed.

“I can­not, in good con­science, pay $8,000 for a body cam that is sell­ing else­where for $2,500 or $3,000,” he said.

He said TTPS in­tends to restart the pro­cure­ment process with what he de­scribed as “more rea­son­able­ness.”

How­ev­er, Gue­var­ro con­firmed that 3,500 bul­let­proof vests had been pur­chased and were al­ready be­ing dis­trib­uted to of­fi­cers.

Mean­while, Gue­var­ro again ad­vised per­sons not to en­gage his of­fi­cers.

Say­ing there had been an in­crease in what he termed “po­lice en­gage­ment,” Gue­var­ro warned, “The po­lice pos­ture at this point in time is ze­ro tol­er­ance to firearm of­fences.”

He reaf­firmed, “I stand one hun­dred per cent be­hind my of­fi­cers.”

The top cop claimed crim­i­nals were find­ing it more dif­fi­cult to move around as freely as be­fore be­cause of an in­creased po­lice pres­ence on the streets.

Ques­tioned about the TTPS readi­ness to con­tin­ue on its cur­rent tra­jec­to­ry should the State of Emer­gency (SoE) be dis­con­tin­ued next month, Gue­var­ro said.

“The TTPS ex­ist­ed be­fore the State of Emer­gency was called and there are par­tic­u­lar things that we have al­ready had in place be­fore the SoE.”

He as­sured, “We stand ready should the State of Emer­gency be called off at any giv­en time to re­spond ef­fec­tive­ly and prompt­ly to what­ev­er is thrust be­fore us.

“Should the SoE come to an end im­me­di­ate­ly, we have al­ready planned what I should call our pre­ci­sion in­tel­li­gence-led op­er­a­tions from now un­til Car­ni­val.”

How­ev­er, he re­fused to di­vulge the plan, say­ing it would alert the crim­i­nal net­work.

“But rest as­sured Trinidad and To­ba­go, we are in safe hands for the im­me­di­ate fu­ture,” he said.

Re­gard­ing in­fra­struc­tur­al re­pairs to the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, Gue­var­ro ad­mit­ted there was no time­line or cost at­tached to the project yet.

He said, “We are all liv­ing in some se­ri­ous fi­nan­cial times and this be­ing the end of the fis­cal year, we are al­ready speak­ing about fis­cal 2026 now.”

Asked to com­ment on the ap­point­ment of re­tired Snr Supt John­ny Abra­ham as head of the Na­tion­al Op­er­a­tions Cen­tre (NOC) and Field Of­fice, Gue­var­ro wel­comed the move as he said, “Mr Abra­ham has about 40-some­thing years of po­lice ex­pe­ri­ence. So any bit of ex­pe­ri­ence or as­sis­tance, any­body who is will­ing to come on board to help Trinidad and To­ba­go get to that place where we want it to be, we will wel­come those per­sons to get on board.”