AKASH SAMA­ROO

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar SC MP says the 2021 Bud­get has gut­ted the po­lice ser­vice, and this will lead to se­vere con­se­quences for law and or­der. 

Speak­ing dur­ing her re­sponse to Bud­get 2020/2021, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said there has been an over­all re­duc­tion for the TTPS in goods and ser­vices—from $515,847,200 in fis­cal 2020, to $334,689,921 in fis­cal 2021—a re­duc­tion of $181,157,278.

She added that the goods and ser­vices bud­get al­lo­ca­tion for 2020 was $515,847,200; how­ev­er the TTPS on­ly re­ceived re­leas­es of around $400 mil­lion, which rep­re­sents a short fall of rough­ly $100 mil­lion.

The Op­po­si­tion Leader said this means the TTPS will be un­able to pay out­stand­ing monies owed to con­trac­tors, which may af­fect the agree­ment in place to re­pair and main­tain the TTPS' ve­hi­cles and sup­ply of ma­te­ri­als.

She said this year's al­lo­ca­tion will see the TTPS start­ing off in debt:

"With the 2021 al­lo­ca­tion be­ing $181,157,278—as well as the $100 mil­lion short­fall in re­leas­es—the TTPS are start­ing the 2021 fis­cal year in a $282 mil­lion hole."

The Op­po­si­tion Leader said with ze­ro al­lo­ca­tion, this means that for fis­cal 2021 the TTPS will be un­able to ac­quire any new ve­hi­cles to re­place the age­ing fleet, as well as ve­hi­cles that have been dam­aged on op­er­a­tions or are in for re­pairs; thus, few­er ve­hi­cles on pa­trols.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so asked where are the funds for the drones the TTPS is ask­ing for, to pa­trol the coast­line and mar­itime bor­ders.

The Op­po­si­tion Leader point­ed out there al­so was a cut in the al­lo­ca­tion for re­cruit­ment of of­fi­cers. She not­ed as well, there has been no al­lo­ca­tion to the Gen­der Based Vi­o­lence Unit and Sex­u­al Vic­tim Unit.

Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so fears that the TTPS will not be able to af­ford to pur­chase the li­cens­es need­ed to up­date nec­es­sary crime fight­ing soft­ware, such as the fin­ger­print­ing iden­ti­fi­ca­tion sys­tem.