The vice pres­i­dent of the TTPS So­cial Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion (TTPSS­WA), act­ing ASP Ish­mael Pitt, ad­mits home­own­er­ship re­mains a chal­lenge for most po­lice of­fi­cers.

Speak­ing with re­porters dur­ing a me­dia brief­ing to com­mem­o­rate the re-launch of a part­ner­ship be­tween the as­so­ci­a­tion and Ch­agua­nas-based hard­ware, Hard­ware and Be­yond, on Wednes­day, Pitt said there was a need for his group to do their part in serv­ing their mem­ber­ship.

Pitt is the can­di­date for pres­i­dent, rep­re­sent­ing Team Prime, for the TTPSS­WA’s in­ter­nal elec­tion on June 30.

Team Prime, which was led by act­ing ASP Gideon Dick­son, has been in pow­er since 2019.

Pitt said that while the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) al­lowed for hous­es to be al­lo­cat­ed to mem­bers of the pro­tec­tive ser­vices, the agency could not pro­vide homes for all of­fi­cers giv­en the high de­mand for homes.

“They have ten per cent for na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and to put that in per­spec­tive, if there’s a hun­dred hous­es be­ing built, on­ly ten of those hous­es will go to­wards na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and those ten hous­es will be fur­ther di­vid­ed up to the po­lice, prison, fire ser­vice and the de­fence force. So with that in mind, you can ap­pre­ci­ate how much of­fi­cers in the equa­tion would ben­e­fit from a house.”

As such, Pitt said the as­so­ci­a­tion has part­nered with the hard­ware to en­sure that of­fi­cers build­ing their own homes from scratch would ben­e­fit from spe­cial rates for the pur­chase of build­ing ma­te­ri­als.

Al­so at­tend­ing the cer­e­mo­ny was the chair­man of the as­so­ci­a­tion’s hous­ing com­mit­tee act­ing ASP Owie Rus­sell. He said aside from in­come, of­fi­cers al­so faced a chal­lenge be­cause of their age.

“When you look at the hous­ing mar­ket in Trinidad and To­ba­go, it’s re­al­ly priced be­tween $1.2 to $1.5 mil­lion, and that presents a par­tic­u­lar chal­lenge for our of­fi­cers be­cause they hold dif­fer­ent ranks.

“So for the new of­fi­cers, they may not reach the salary price point and for those who have the salary price point, they may not reach the age. So it’s an age we de­cid­ed to look at to en­sure all of­fi­cers can ben­e­fit from own­ing their own home.’”

Rus­sell es­ti­mat­ed that 80 of­fi­cers have ben­e­fit­ed from the part­ner­ship with the hard­ware over the three years it has been op­er­a­tional.

‘Don’t take cred­it for

things you didn’t do’

Mean­while, rep­re­sen­ta­tives for the Re­al Po­lice for Po­lice par­ty have urged their ri­vals to be truth­ful with their promis­es and their track record on what was ac­com­plished dur­ing their time in of­fice.

Speak­ing dur­ing the par­ty’s launch at the Bel­mont Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre on Wednes­day af­ter­noon, founder and can­di­date for pres­i­dent PC Kevin McMil­lan ac­cused the cur­rent so­cial wel­fare as­so­ci­a­tion’s lead­er­ship of tak­ing cred­it for the ab­sorp­tion of SRPs in­to the wider TTPS.

“To you, my SRP broth­ers and sis­ters do not fall for the ab­sorp­tion.

“Yes we want that to hap­pen, but noth­ing is on the as­so­ci­a­tion’s side.

“That is a gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy, don’t be mis­led in­to think­ing the as­so­ci­a­tion or ex­ec­u­tive is re­spon­si­ble for that.

“All the as­so­ci­a­tion can do is chart a way for­ward on be­half of the SRPs.”

Can­di­date for the First Di­vi­sion Rep­re­sen­ta­tive for the Re­al Po­lice for Po­lice par­ty ACP Richard Smith al­so agreed with McMil­lan’s call. He urged the mem­ber­ship to choose care­ful­ly when they cast their votes lat­er this month.

He al­so stressed that the par­ty would not be mak­ing “un­re­al­is­tic” promis­es as it would cre­ate long-term chal­lenges.

“When you fool peo­ple and give them false hope, when you get in of­fice how are you go­ing to de­liv­er?”