Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice, which re­ceived an al­lo­ca­tion of $2.6 bil­lion for 2025, has sev­er­al plans in the works, in­clud­ing a Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Counter Home/Busi­ness In­va­sion Task Force.

This is found in the 2025 Bud­get (Ap­pro­pri­a­tion) doc­u­ment, in­clud­ing the De­vel­op­ment Plan and Ex­pen­di­ture Re­port.

These were laid in Par­lia­ment on Mon­day by Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert when he pre­sent­ed the 2025 fis­cal pack­age. Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty re­ceived $6.113 bil­lion in the bud­get.

In the In­fra­struc­ture De­vel­op­ment Fund, the TTPS has $90 mil­lion, of which $67.5 mil­lion is for pub­lic or­der and safe­ty. New items in the TTPS’s IDF in­clude the es­tab­lish­ment of the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Counter Home/Busi­ness In­va­sions Task Force cost­ing $225,000; a Spe­cial An­ti-Crime Op­er­a­tions Unit and Il­le­gal Firearms and Am­mu­ni­tion Re­trieval Task Force.

Al­so list­ed is the es­tab­lish­ment of a $3 mil­lion Seis­mic Fu­sion Cen­tre. Im­prove­ment work to po­lice sta­tions is al­so planned un­der the IDF cost­ing $1.5 mil­lion, and the con­struc­tion of an An­ti-Crime Unit head­quar­ters in To­ba­go at the Old Grange Po­lice Sta­tion to the tune of half a mil­lion dol­lars.

Oth­er new TTPS projects in­clude the set­ting up of a Po­lice Com­mu­ni­ty and Out­reach Pro­gramme unit, train­ing and de­vel­op­ment for of­fi­cers for $ 6 mil­lion, and a $5 mil­lion state-of-the-art po­lice acad­e­my at Cu­mu­to.

The up­grade of po­lice sur­veil­lance and train­ing sup­port (CCTV) sys­tems will cost $1.5 mil­lion, with the de­vel­op­ment of com­put­erised sys­tems for TTPS ser­vices cost­ing $15 mil­lion.

The TTPS has al­so res­ur­rect­ed some projects, in­clud­ing the river­ine pa­trol unit for $1.5 mil­lion and vir­tu­al courts for $1 mil­lion. Adding to se­cu­ri­ty sys­tems is the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­istry’s new $1.2 mil­lion pi­lot project Eyes Every­where in­volv­ing mu­nic­i­pal po­lice. An es­ti­mat­ed $1.8 mil­lion was set aside for mu­nic­i­pal po­lice equip­ment and ve­hi­cles. Res­i­dence for fe­male child of­fend­ers com­ing.

How­ev­er, the TTPS is not the on­ly sec­tor of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty with ma­jor plans list­ed. Oth­er new de­fence projects in­clude the new Teteron Bar­racks at Crow’s Nest for $1 mil­lion, the up­grade of the Coast Guard’s To­ba­go head­quar­ters, and the for­ma­tion of a Coast Guard base at Ga­le­o­ta.

Al­so for 2025 is a new Mi­gra­tion Tran­si­tion Cen­tre (cost­ing $500,000). The prop­er­ty will be ac­quired for this in South Trinidad. The Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry’s plans will al­so see an “El­ders” com­plex at Gold­en Grove for $2 mil­lion and a new Mil­i­tary Ceme­tery and Mul­ti­pur­pose Re­li­gious Cen­tre cost­ing half a mil­lion dol­lars.

The min­istry stat­ed that it al­so aims to es­tab­lish a $2 mil­lion De­fence Mil­i­tary Acad­e­my at Corinth, an $88 mil­lion in­te­grat­ed sup­port ser­vice for the T&T Coast Guard’s (TTCG) naval as­sets and a $5 mil­lion up­grade of the coun­try’s ra­dio com­mu­ni­ca­tion in­fra­struc­ture.

Two mil­lion dol­lars have been set aside for the elec­tron­ic mon­i­tor­ing de­vice pro­gramme, which will in­volve “cut-proof” de­vices, $1 mil­lion in com­mu­ni­ty res­i­dence for fe­male child of­fend­ers, and the re­ac­ti­va­tion of a prison man­age­ment pol­i­cy and train­ing for this is al­so on the agen­da.

Al­so list­ed are the $5 mil­lion ac­qui­si­tion of TTCG in­ter­cep­tors, Im­mi­gra­tion’s $3 mil­lion plan to up­grade to au­to­mat­ed fin­ger­print ID sys­tems, and the $4 mil­lion ac­qui­si­tion of equip­ment and ve­hi­cles for the Fire Ser­vice, re­fur­bish­ment of TTFS ve­hi­cles, and pur­chase of TTFS equip­ment.

Re­con­struc­tion of the Princes Town Fire Sta­tion is al­so part of the 2025 plan. How­ev­er, there was no fund­ing list­ed for an item in the re­port called the Na­tion­al Base­line Sur­vey to Mea­sure Safe­ty and Se­cu­ri­ty. In 2023, $120,956 was bud­get­ed for this item.