An over­all al­lo­ca­tion of $143.3 mil­lion will be pro­vid­ed in fis­cal year 2023 to as­sist the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) to im­ple­ment its pro­gramme of works and out of that $88.7 mil­lion will be al­lo­cat­ed for crit­i­cal in­fra­struc­tur­al works in­clud­ing roof re­pairs, elec­tri­cal up­grades, plumb­ing im­prove­ments, In­for­ma­tion Tech­nol­o­gy up­grades and ex­pan­sion of fa­cil­i­ties.

The TTPS will al­so re­ceive an al­lo­ca­tion of $54.6 mil­lion un­der the In­fra­struc­ture De­vel­op­ment Fund for the con­struc­tion of po­lice sta­tions, pay­ment of de­sign fees for two projects and im­ple­men­ta­tion of five oth­er ma­jor cap­i­tal projects. 

The specifics of Mon­day’s Bud­get Pre­sen­ta­tion by Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert were de­tails in the Pub­lic Sec­tor In­vest­ment Pro­gramme (PSIP) bud­get doc­u­ment. 

Some of these projects card­ed for the TTPS in­cludes: Im­prove­ment works to Po­lice Sta­tions and Build­ings such as the La Hor­quet­ta Po­lice Sta­tion, Four Roads Po­lice Sta­tion, Point Fortin Po­lice Sta­tion, Mor­vant Po­lice Sta­tion, Siparia Po­lice Sta­tion; Es­tab­lish­ment of Fa­cil­i­ties for Di­vi­sion­al Com­mand Cen­tres - up­grade works at the Siparia Di­vi­sion­al Com­mand Cen­tre of the South West­ern Di­vi­sion and the San­gre Grande Di­vi­sion­al Com­mand Cen­tre of the East­ern Di­vi­sion; De­vel­op­ment Works at the Po­lice Acad­e­my; Re­fur­bish­ments Works to the Mount­ed and Ca­nine Branch (New) - re­fur­bish­ment works will be un­der­tak­en at two branch­es: Ch­aguara­mas and Ca­roni - re­fur­bish­ment of the K9 fa­cil­i­ties and a re­quest for pro­pos­al is to be de­vel­oped for the drainage sys­tem at the Ca­roni Po­lice Sta­tion; De­vel­op­ment Works at the St. Madeleine Po­lice Sta­tion (New) – con­struc­tion of a two-storey build­ing to ac­com­mo­date the op­er­a­tional and ad­min­is­tra­tive needs of the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions Re­gion Three and the Fraud Squad, South. 

An al­lo­ca­tion of $15 mil­lion will be in­vest­ed to pro­cure equip­ment for the TTPS in­clud­ing ICT sys­tem for mo­bile as­sets, mo­bile de­vice track­ing sys­tems, re­mote com­mu­ni­ca­tion sys­tems, sur­veil­lance sys­tems and body cam­era sys­tems. 

An al­lo­ca­tion of $20 mil­lion will be pro­vid­ed for the pro­cure­ment of sport util­i­ty ve­hi­cles, sedans, long wheel base 4x4 ve­hi­cles, 30-seater bus­es, trac­tors and bomb dis­pos­al trucks. 

Al­so, ac­cord­ing to the PSIP, the pro­gramme for the con­struc­tion of new po­lice sta­tions - the Man­zanil­la and the Matu­ra Po­lice Sta­tions where an amount of $4 mil­lion will be pro­vid­ed for the en­gi­neer­ing de­signs and scope of works with equal dis­tri­b­u­tion re­spec­tive­ly for both projects. 

The Man­zanil­la and the Matu­ra Po­lice Sta­tions will al­so un­der­go re­fur­bish­ment and up­grade works. 

The PSIP stat­ed that a land use plan­ning firm was en­gaged in 2021 to de­vel­op a con­cep­tu­al/ land use plan, pro­posed de­sign en­gi­neer­ing draw­ings and cost es­ti­mates for all of the works re­quired for the Po­lice Acad­e­my. It dis­closed that the de­vel­op­ment works are to be im­ple­ment­ed on a phased ba­sis. 

There are cur­rent­ly lim­it­ed dor­mi­to­ry fa­cil­i­ties which re­strict the abil­i­ty to meet the tar­get for re­cruit in­take. As such, phase one of the project will utilise an al­lo­ca­tion of $8.4 mil­lion to com­mence works on the es­tab­lish­ment of new dor­mi­to­ries for 300 re­cruits and 60 in­struc­tors. Phase two works will en­tail the con­struc­tion of a mul­ti-storey car park for 200 ve­hi­cles. 

With the ex­ist­ing air con­di­tion sys­tems at the Bras­so, Ari­ma, Pi­ar­co, Oropouche, Mal­oney, Cu­mu­to, La Brea and Moru­ga Po­lice Sta­tions be­ing dys­func­tion­al and un­able to ad­e­quate­ly cool the fa­cil­i­ties, the TTPS will un­der­take the re­place­ment of the units at t a cost of $47 mil­lion sub­ject to the ap­proval of Cab­i­net. 

With re­spect to the es­tab­lish­ment of a Coastal and River­ine Pa­trol Unit - the con­struc­tion of a jet­ty and a build­ing for ves­sel main­te­nance to house the Coastal and River­ine Pa­trol Unit at the Care­nage Po­lice Sta­tion – a pro­vi­sion of $8 mil­lion will be al­lo­cat­ed. 

The TTPS Ad­min­is­tra­tion Sup­port Cen­tre is to be re­lo­cat­ed to fa­cil­i­tate the de­vel­op­ment of a mul­ti-storey car park on Ed­ward Street and St. Vin­cent Street in Port of Spain. 

The Ad­min­is­tra­tion Sup­port Cen­tre which cur­rent­ly hous­es the In­for­ma­tion Tech­nol­o­gy De­part­ment, Court and Process De­part­ment and Crime Scene In­ves­ti­ga­tions and the Ad­min­is­tra­tive Of­fice of the ACP Crim­i­nal Di­vi­sion - a pro­vi­sion of $10 mil­lion will be pro­vid­ed for the re­lo­ca­tion of the Cen­tre to Trinidad House. 

In 2009, a fire oc­curred in the east­ern sec­tion of the San Fer­nan­do Po­lice Sta­tion com­mon­ly re­ferred to as the ‘San Fer­nan­do Old Po­lice Head­quar­ters’ and as a re­sult, the TTPS will un­der­take the de­vel­op­ment of en­gi­neer­ing de­signs and scope of works at a cost of $1 mil­lion in prepa­ra­tion for re­fur­bish­ment/new con­struc­tion works to be ex­e­cut­ed on the fa­cil­i­ty.