Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor — Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

The na­tion’s crime fight­ing thrust will soon be boost­ed by the im­ple­men­ta­tion of mo­bile po­lice units which will house both po­lice of­fi­cers and sol­diers.

At yes­ter­day’s Post Cab­i­net news brief­ing, De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge an­nounced that in its ini­tial phase, 25 mo­bile units would be pro­cured.

“These mo­bile po­lice units would com­prise of five units, which are sim­i­lar in size to 20-foot con­tain­ers.”

He said up to eight of­fi­cers could sleep in these units while there would be a fur­ther 20 units sim­i­lar in size to 40-foot ship­ping con­tain­ers which could sleep up to 12 of­fi­cers.

Sturge said this would en­hance po­lice vis­i­bil­i­ty and strength­en the pres­ence of law en­force­ment in com­mu­ni­ties.

“This project, this first 25, would fa­cil­i­tate swift strate­gic de­ploy­ment, as these units would be strate­gi­cal­ly placed in cer­tain places around the coun­try, so that we can mon­i­tor ex­its and traf­fic go­ing in­to and out of var­i­ous com­mu­ni­ties, so that when there is an in­ci­dent, such as a shoot­ing or a bur­glary or a mur­der, the se­cu­ri­ty ser­vices would be bet­ter placed to re­spond rapid­ly.”

The De­fence Min­is­ter added that this would al­so be used as a strate­gic tool to as­sist in bor­der con­trol.

“The first phase, we in­tend to use it to tar­get spe­cif­ic ar­eas where we see there is a growth in terms of a cer­tain de­mo­graph­ic, a de­mo­graph­ic which a par­tic­u­lar now-des­ig­nat­ed ter­ror­ist en­ti­ty dwells among. And this ini­tia­tive would be with a view to erad­i­cat­ing the ex­is­tence of mem­bers of this par­tic­u­lar now-des­ig­nat­ed ter­ror­ist group.”

Sturge said the units will be de­ployed, “in the com­ing months.”

He added that there will be a “project screen­ing” and af­ter the pro­cure­ment process will be­gin.

“So that it will be com­pet­i­tive, al­though it’s na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty. But be­cause it can be built lo­cal­ly and there are sup­pli­ers who can pro­vide it, we will be look­ing to who­ev­er is the en­ti­ty best suit­ed to con­struct. It’s al­ready de­signed, in essence, but con­struct these units in a man­ner that is favourable to tax­pay­ers’ in­ter­est.”