The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) has paid out near­ly $800 mil­lion in over­time in just two years and eight months, with ex­pen­di­ture for the first eight months of 2026 al­ready sur­pass­ing the en­tire bill for 2025, even as the coun­try pre­pares for an­oth­er round of height­ened polic­ing un­der the new Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions leg­is­la­tion.

Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro is de­fend­ing the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice’s (TTPS) $800 mil­lion over­time bill as the ser­vice faces in­tense scruti­ny over pay­ments ac­crued dur­ing the three States of Emer­gency (SoEs) de­clared be­tween 2024 and 2026.

At­tor­ney Keron Ramkhal­whan is call­ing for an in­de­pen­dent au­dit in­to the man­age­ment of over­time with­in the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS), fol­low­ing rev­e­la­tions that near­ly $800 mil­lion was paid to po­lice of­fi­cers in just two years and eight months.

For­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les has crit­i­cised the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice’s (TTPS) es­ca­lat­ing over­time bill, ques­tion­ing whether tax­pay­ers are see­ing re­sults from the hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars be­ing spent.

Two sus­pect­ed gun­men were killed and a po­lice of­fi­cer in­jured dur­ing a shootout with po­lice in Buc­coo on Wednes­day night, mark­ing To­ba­go’s first po­lice-in­volved fa­tal shoot­ing of 2026.

The ef­fec­tive­ness of any per­mit sys­tem in­tro­duced un­der the Gov­ern­ment’s new Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions leg­is­la­tion will de­pend on how pro­fes­sion­al­ly and in­tel­li­gent­ly it is ad­min­is­tered, says re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty ex­pert Dr Garvin Heer­ah.

Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les has chal­lenged Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath to drink a glass of the same brown wa­ter flow­ing from af­fect­ed house­hold taps, ques­tion­ing the min­is­ter’s as­sur­ance that the dis­coloured sup­ply is safe for do­mes­tic use.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar paid trib­ute to ca­lyp­so icon Dr Slinger “Mighty Spar­row” Fran­cis­co af­ter sign­ing the con­do­lence book in his ho­n­our at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA) on Thurs­day.

Trinidad and To­ba­go has cap­tured an­oth­er in­ter­na­tion­al pageant ti­tle, af­ter lo­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tive Leeann Dass took the Woman of the Uni­verse Elite 2026 in South Ko­rea on Wednes­day.

Op­po­si­tion Whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les is con­tin­u­ing his ef­forts to have his mo­tion on Trinidad and To­ba­go’s wa­ter sup­ply de­bat­ed in Par­lia­ment, ar­gu­ing that the is­sue has wors­ened since he first filed it in June.

Pa­tri­ot­ic Front leader Mick­ela Pan­day has called for ur­gent ac­tion over con­di­tions at the Ac­ci­dent and Emer­gency De­part­ment of the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex (EWM­SC) in Mt Hope, de­scrib­ing the sit­u­a­tion as a health­care sys­tem “in deep cri­sis.”

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, five men jumped a fence be­hind Sandy’s Ba­co­let Gar­dens prop­er­ty be­fore smash­ing a glass door to en­ter the house.