Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley has told the Police Service that they must do more to maintain the vehicles within the T&T Police Service (TTPS).
Rowley was the featured speaker at the opening of the Carenage Police Station yesterday and said that he objected to a Cabinet Note seeking to purchase a fleet of new Sport Utility Vehicles (SUV’s) for the T&T Police Service (TTPS).
“This morning we had a Cabinet note from the Police Service to buy a large number of Sport Utility Vehicles. I took objection because I don’t know if that is the only kind of vehicle that police could drive,” he said.
“Those vehicles so designated cost more than the average vehicle,” he said.
Rowley said the vehicles were more costly because of the four-wheel-drive feature but questioned how many officers actually needed or used that function.
“But we pay for it, because it is fashionable,” he said.
Rowley also said the issue of the maintenance of police vehicles was also discussed at the Cabinet meeting.
“We can’t just get up every 24 months and buy $200 million in vehicles,” he said.
“We have to be better,” he said.
He said they also discussed the role and function of Fleet Management.
“We did lose a lot in situations where we should not have lost them and worse, we’ve parked up vehicles for minimum maintenance and watched them deteriorate,” he said.
He called on the management of the TTPS to think about the taxpayer.
Both the National Security Minister Fitzgerald Hinds and the Commissioner of Police Gary Griffith were in the audience.
The Prime Minister also called for more focus on police training.
He said that “whoever” was in charge of the TTPS within the next 24 months should implement a rigorous training programme but did not mention that Griffith’s contract comes to an end in August and that he indicated that he was going to vie for a reappointment.
“Whoever is senior here at the Police Service, whether you have another month to go, another year to go, we ask you to go the extra mile and in so doing, continue to provide guidance to the younger ones,” Rowley said.
Rowley said that with the “appropriate leadership” at the helm of the TTPS a number of areas within the service will “start to improve”.
He then singled out the Commissioner and directed him to have “zero tolerance for misconduct in the Police Service”.
This Carenage Police Station will also house the new Marine Division of the TTPS.
“This facility will have at the back, an arm of National Security which I hope will grow very long to allow policing of a section of the country in which criminal conduct is prevalent or could be prevalent and where criminals believe that they are beyond the reached the officers on land and if they just go out to sea if they are being chased, then they safe until morning. All that will change,” he said.
He recommended to the TTPS recruitment to look for people who live on the coast and have an aptitude for the water.
He said it made no sense to have officers attached to that unit who were afraid of water and boats and only there to collect a salary.
“We are going to invest in a whole lot more of those small craft for coastal patrol because especially at night, those areas are open and should be shut,” Rowley said.
He said that the Carenage area was chosen to start the Marine Division because it was close to “our neighbouring who was providing us with most of the illegals who want to run across here in the north”.
He said there was a gap between the street and the sea where the Coast Guard usually patrolled.
Griffith described the police station as a “critical asset” in the fight against crime especially in the western part of the island.
“Location, location, location. For persons who may not be aware, for the last 15 years, trying to secure the western peninsula by the Western Division, it was very difficult,” he said.
Griffith said that the infrastructure was bad before and welcomed this new structure tong house officers.
“What we have now is a strategic location that would assist us greatly in securing the western peninsula,” he said.
He said the proximity to the road was key to locking down the western area.
The event began with a moment of silence for the 800 people who died from COVID-19.