Gail M.M Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

There is an al­lo­ca­tion in the 2024 Bud­get for out­fit­ting the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions’ Of­fice in the north. The Youth De­vel­op­ment Min­istry’s projects in­clude a new short term ac­tion plan for a Na­tion­al Ser­vice Pro­gramme and the Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­istry’s plans in­clude the $3 mil­lion de­sign and im­ple­men­ta­tion of an In­tel­li­gent Vir­tu­al Guard­ing sys­tem for WASA in­stal­la­tions.

These are con­tained in doc­u­ments ac­com­pa­ny­ing the 2024 Bud­get which was de­liv­ered on Mon­day.

In the Draft Es­ti­mates of De­vel­op­ment Pro­gramme Ex­pen­di­ture 2024, Health had the high­est al­lo­ca­tion ($388 mil­lion), Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment ($358.2 mil­lion), Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty ($198.4 mil­lion) and the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice ($121.067 mil­lion).

Min­is­ters will ex­plain the Bud­get plans for their re­spec­tive port­fo­lios dur­ing the up­com­ing de­bate in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives which starts on Fri­day.

The is­sue of ac­com­mo­da­tion for the DPP’s Of­fice was raised by DPP Roger Gas­pard in March when he spoke about a se­vere staff short­age. This drew re­ac­tive neg­a­tive com­ments from At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour, the Prime Min­is­ter and the Chief Jus­tice. Gas­pard stood his ground on the is­sue be­fore a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee of Par­lia­ment.

In May, Ar­mour said he and Gas­pard were work­ing “shoul­der to shoul­der” to fix the is­sues. In Ju­ly Ar­mour said in­ter­views for state coun­sel had been done.

Ac­cord­ing to the Bud­get doc­u­ment, the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al’s Min­istry has a list­ing for $3 mil­lion for “out­fit­ting ac­co­mo­da­tion for the DPP (North).” It did not state if this is the DPP’s cur­rent of­fice. The Park Street build­ing pro­vid­ed by the state in 2020 wasn’t used due to se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns.

The doc­u­ment list­ed $2.7 mil­lion for “out­fit­ting” in 2022, $1 mil­lion in 2023, a $500,000 re­vised es­ti­mate in 2023 and $3 mil­lion for 2024. An­oth­er $200,000 is list­ed for ren­o­va­tion of the Win­sure Build­ing where the DPP’s north of­fice is lo­cat­ed.

The Youth De­vel­op­ment and Na­tion­al Ser­vice Min­istry has $63 mil­lion for a youth de­vel­op­ment pro­gramme cov­er­ing train­ing and fa­cil­i­ties. The planned short term ac­tion plan for the Na­tion­al Ser­vice Pro­gramme for TT (NSP-TT) will cost $2 mil­lion.

The TTPS has been al­lo­cat­ed $25 mil­lion for the pur­chase of ve­hi­cles and $67 mil­lion for equip­ment. Some $1.942 mil­lion is al­lo­cat­ed for work on the Mount­ed and K9 branch­es, and $15 mil­lion for a com­put­erised sys­tem.

The Fi­nance Min­istry’s al­lo­ca­tions in­clude $5 mil­lion for se­cu­ri­ty cam­eras and $100 mil­lion for in­spec­tion scan­ners at Cus­toms and Ex­cise, $500,000 for ac­qui­si­tion of trained drug de­tect­ing dogs, a $1 mil­lion up­grade for the Ca­nine Unit and $1.5 mil­lion for up­grade of con­tain­er ex­am­i­na­tion sta­tions at the ports in Port-of-Spain and Point Lisas.

The Agri­cul­ture Min­istry’s list­ing in­cludes “im­ple­men­ta­tion of an ac­tion plan to ad­dress il­le­gal, un­re­port­ed and un­reg­u­lat­ed fish­ing in Trinidad and To­ba­go ports and wa­ters.” No cost was giv­en.

This plan is ex­pect­ed to be part of leg­is­la­tion to reg­u­late the fish­eries sec­tor. It was be­ing ex­am­ined by the Leg­isla­tive Re­view Com­mis­sion last Fri­day be­fore be­ing sent to Cab­i­net. The law is ur­gent giv­en the Eu­ro­pean Union’s re­cent is­su­ing of a “red card” to T&T for be­ing a non-co­op­er­at­ing coun­try in the fight against il­le­gal, un­re­port­ed and un­reg­u­lat­ed fish­ing.

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty’s new projects in­clude a hy­per­bar­ic cham­ber cost­ing $5 mil­lion and an up­grad­ed $500,000 plumb­ing project at the Re­mand Yard and Women’s Prison.

The Min­istry al­lo­cat­ed $1 mil­lion for an on­go­ing com­mu­ni­ty res­i­dence/re­hab cen­tre for fe­male child of­fend­ers, while $24.6 mil­lion is al­lo­cat­ed for con­struc­tion of fire sta­tions in Point Fortin, Pe­nal, Rox­bor­ough, Ari­ma, Bel­mont and $9 mil­lion has been al­lo­cat­ed for Coast Guard in­ter­cep­tors.

Oth­er plans for im­prov­ing safe­ty (Put in box)

* OF­FICE OF THE PRIME MIN­IS­TER - $1 mil­lion for im­ple­men­ta­tion of a re­vised op­er­a­tion/man­age­ment mod­el for a state owned do­mes­tic vi­o­lence shel­ter and $500,000 for a Na­tion­al Frame­work to re­spond to per­pe­tra­tion of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence.

* LO­CAL GOV­ERN­MENT- $1.5 mil­lion for mu­nic­i­pal po­lice equip­ment, $2 mil­lion for mu­nic­i­pal po­lice ve­hi­cles.

* PUB­LIC UTIL­I­TIES - Il­lu­mi­na­tion of taxi stands (cost­ing $200,000) and re­ac­ti­vat­ing il­lu­mi­na­tion of po­lice sta­tion grounds.

* EN­ER­GY MIN­ISTRY- $360,000 for ac­qui­si­tion of an un­manned aer­i­al sys­tem (UAS) for the min­er­als sec­tor which has been plagued with il­le­gal quar­ry­ing.

* PER­SON­NEL DE­PART­MENT- $1 mil­lion job eval­u­a­tion and clas­si­fi­ca­tion for the TTPS.

* JU­DI­CIA­RY- re­ac­ti­vat­ed projects for the San Fer­nan­do Court ($6 mil­lion) and Fam­i­ly Court ($1 mil­lion)

* SPORT/COM­MU­NI­TY DE­VEL­OP­MENT - So­cial/com­mu­ni­ty ser­vices pro­gramme for com­mu­ni­ty strength­en­ing, de­vel­op­ing men­tors, lead­er­ship, par­ent­ing skills.

* IN­FRA­STRUC­TURE DE­VEL­OP­MENT FUND - Im­prove­ment to all pris­ons build­ings; CCTV at the Port-of-Spain Pris­ons and YTC; $10m perime­ter fence at Gold­en Grove; $500,000 for spe­cial court on the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison com­pound; $3 mil­lion up­grade of the Aripo Im­mi­gra­tion De­ten­tion Cen­tre.