AKASH SAMA­ROO

Lead Ed­i­tor – Pol­i­tics

The Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty has been al­lo­cat­ed $50 mil­lion to fund “covert op­er­a­tions” with­in the na­tion’s pris­ons.

Dur­ing ex­am­i­na­tion of the Min­istry’s re­cur­rent ex­pen­di­ture dur­ing yes­ter­day's Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee (SFC), Port-of-Spain South MP Kei­th Scot­land ques­tioned what the mon­ey was for con­sid­er­ing the vague head­ing it was un­der.

“You have 50 mil­lion al­lo­cat­ed un­der ex­tra­or­di­nary ex­pen­di­ture. And noth­ing, no nar­ra­tive rel­a­tive to what that is. Could you tell us what com­pris­es ex­tra­or­di­nary ex­pen­di­ture for 50 mil­lion dol­lars? That's ex­tra­or­di­nary,” Scot­land asked Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der.

The min­is­ter re­spond­ed, “re­mem­ber you would know in the prison ser­vice, there are spe­cialised de­part­ments that al­so con­duct covert op­er­a­tions.”

How­ev­er, Alexan­der did not want to dis­close any more in­for­ma­tion.

“I would not want to go fur­ther in­to it at this stage.”

But Scot­land who is a for­mer Min­is­ter in the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry asked, “Who will be ac­count­ing and who is ac­count­able for this so-called ex­tra­or­di­nary ex­pen­di­ture?”

How­ev­er Alexan­der said that in­for­ma­tion would be pro­vid­ed at a lat­er date.

“Well, what we can do, we'll put it in writ­ing for you, mem­ber, so you'll have a bet­ter un­der­stand­ing of it,” Alexan­der replied.

$11.2 Mil­lion was al­so al­lo­cat­ed for ve­hi­cles for the Trinidad and To­ba­go Fire Ser­vice.

Ex­plain­ing how that mon­ey would be spent, Alexan­der ex­plained, “We have two 25-seater bus­es, sev­en util­i­ty pick­up trucks, we have a fire ten­der and a wa­ter ten­der.

Scot­land then asked where these ve­hi­cles would be de­ployed.

Min­is­ter Alexan­der ex­plained that the fire ten­der would go to the Wood­brook Fire Sta­tion. How­ev­er he said the Bel­mont Fire Sta­tion may al­so get a fire ten­der.

The Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter said the process of procur­ing those ap­pli­ances could take up to two years.

In a 2023 Guardian Me­dia in­ves­tiga­tive re­port, it was re­vealed that the Wood­brook and Bel­mont Fire Sta­tions were op­er­at­ing with­out fire trucks.