POLICE BUDGET TRIPLES

Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­[email protected]

At the dawn of spe­cial op­er­a­tions in des­ig­nat­ed di­vi­sions and the Gov­ern­ment’s promise of hard­er polic­ing, de­vel­op­ment fund­ing for the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice is set to more than triple to $230.5 mil­lion, with sub­stan­tial boosts for spe­cial­ist units, sta­tions, ve­hi­cles and equip­ment.

The in­for­ma­tion is de­tailed in the Draft Es­ti­mates of Re­cur­rent Ex­pen­di­ture, Draft Es­ti­mates of De­vel­op­ment Pro­gramme and Pub­lic Sec­tor In­vest­ment Plan (PSIP), which were pre­sent­ed fol­low­ing the Bud­get de­bate in Par­lia­ment on Mon­day, where Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo de­tailed $63.368B fis­cal pack­age.

The draft es­ti­mates pro­vide $186.1 mil­lion through the Con­sol­i­dat­ed Fund and an­oth­er $44.4 mil­lion through the In­fra­struc­ture De­vel­op­ment Fund. To­geth­er, that rep­re­sents an in­crease of ap­prox­i­mate­ly $159.7 mil­lion, or 225 per cent, over the com­bined re­vised 2026 pro­vi­sion of $70.9 mil­lion.

The to­tal is al­so ap­prox­i­mate­ly $56.2 mil­lion, or 32 per cent, high­er than the com­bined $174.3 mil­lion orig­i­nal­ly al­lo­cat­ed for 2026.

Some of the largest in­creas­es go to spe­cialised polic­ing units.

The Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions/Counter Home and Busi­ness In­va­sion Task Force re­ceives $12 mil­lion, com­pared with a re­vised $825,000 in 2026. The pro­vi­sion for es­tab­lish­ing a Coastal and River­ine Pa­trol Unit ris­es from $914,000 to $10 mil­lion, while up­grades to the Air Sup­port/Drone Unit re­ceive $5 mil­lion, up from $1.6 mil­lion.

A sep­a­rate Spe­cial An­ti-Crime Op­er­a­tion Unit is al­lo­cat­ed ap­prox­i­mate­ly $4.95 mil­lion, com­pared with $1.05 mil­lion.

Fund­ing for po­lice ve­hi­cles un­der the de­vel­op­ment pro­gramme in­creas­es from ap­prox­i­mate­ly $9.7 mil­lion to $20 mil­lion.

Po­lice Acad­e­my de­vel­op­ment works re­ceive $7 mil­lion, up from $2.5 mil­lion, while train­ing and de­vel­op­ment for of­fi­cers ris­es from $1.75 mil­lion to $4.8 mil­lion.

The Po­lice Ser­vice’s com­put­er sys­tem is al­lo­cat­ed $14 mil­lion, com­pared with ap­prox­i­mate­ly $8.5 mil­lion.

Im­prove­ment works to po­lice sta­tions and build­ings re­ceive $26 mil­lion, up from a re­vised $4 mil­lion, with a sep­a­rate $3.5 mil­lion pro­vi­sion for im­prove­ment works in To­ba­go.

Through the In­fra­struc­ture De­vel­op­ment Fund, con­struc­tion of the Las Lo­mas Po­lice Sta­tion re­ceives $1.5 mil­lion, while de­vel­op­ment works at Ste Madeleine Po­lice Sta­tion are al­lo­cat­ed $5 mil­lion.

Oth­er pro­vi­sions in­clude $5.3 mil­lion for a ca­nine fa­cil­i­ty in Ca­roni, $3.8 mil­lion for up­grad­ing the Po­lice Hos­pi­tal and $4.2 mil­lion for de­ten­tion-cell up­grades.

The de­vel­op­ment al­lo­ca­tion for equip­ment ris­es from $18.5 mil­lion to $20 mil­lion. A sep­a­rate re­cur­rent pro­vi­sion for oth­er mi­nor equip­ment in Trinidad in­creas­es from $12 mil­lion to $20 mil­lion.

The equip­ment fund­ing in­cludes mon­ey for body-worn cam­eras, al­though the es­ti­mates do not sep­a­rate­ly iden­ti­fy the amount ear­marked for their pur­chase or the num­ber to be ac­quired.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has said cam­eras must be worn dur­ing spe­cial op­er­a­tions. How­ev­er, the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Act does not make their use ex­plic­it­ly manda­to­ry, pro­vid­ing for their use on­ly “where prac­ti­ca­ble.”

On­ly on Tues­day, at the launch of the re­cent­ly con­struct­ed Sig­nal Hill Po­lice Post in To­ba­go, Per­sad-Bisses­sar praised Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro as the “best Com­mis­sion­er I have ever worked with.”

The pro­posed in­vest­ment comes as crim­i­nol­o­gist Dr Mal­isa Nep­tune-Fi­garo calls for clear, pub­licly ac­ces­si­ble tar­gets show­ing what cit­i­zens should re­ceive in re­turn, warn­ing that im­ple­men­ta­tion will de­ter­mine whether the ad­di­tion­al re­sources im­prove pub­lic safe­ty.

Nep­tune-Fi­garo de­scribed the pro­posed in­creas­es as a sig­nif­i­cant in­vest­ment in polic­ing ca­pac­i­ty, ad­dress­ing op­er­a­tional needs through fa­cil­i­ties, ve­hi­cles, tech­nol­o­gy and train­ing.

How­ev­er, she said fund­ing was on­ly the start­ing point.

“The re­al test will be how ef­fec­tive­ly these re­sources are used and whether or not they trans­late in­to more time­ly re­spons­es, stronger in­ves­ti­ga­tions and im­prove­ments in the over­all pub­lic safe­ty of cit­i­zens,” she said.

Im­ple­men­ta­tion, she stressed, must be sup­port­ed by clear tar­gets and pub­licly ac­ces­si­ble strate­gic frame­works ex­plain­ing how the in­vest­ments con­tribute to the wider crime-re­duc­tion strat­e­gy.

“The pub­lic should be able to un­der­stand what will be de­liv­ered,” she said.

That should in­clude how ve­hi­cles will be ac­quired, where they will be de­ployed, which fa­cil­i­ties will be im­proved and when projects are ex­pect­ed to be com­plet­ed, Nep­tune-Fi­garo point­ed out.

While the es­ti­mates iden­ti­fy al­lo­ca­tions, she said more de­tail was need­ed to as­sess the in­tend­ed out­puts and out­comes.

Nep­tune-Fi­garo al­so called for ex­pla­na­tions of why pre­vi­ous al­lo­ca­tions were re­vised down­wards, which projects were com­plet­ed and whether out­stand­ing work was be­ing car­ried for­ward.

She cau­tioned that re­duc­tions did not au­to­mat­i­cal­ly in­di­cate poor per­for­mance.

Pre­ven­tion and pub­lic trust, she added, should be in­te­grat­ed in­to the in­vest­ment, in­clud­ing mean­ing­ful pro­grammes and sus­tained po­lice en­gage­ment with com­mu­ni­ties.

Ques­tions were sent to Gue­var­ro seek­ing mea­sur­able tar­gets for crime de­tec­tion, re­sponse times and pub­lic safe­ty, and a timetable for de­liv­er­ing im­prove­ments.

He was al­so asked how spe­cial­ist units would ex­pand their op­er­a­tions, how many of­fi­cers would re­ceive body-worn cam­eras and which sta­tions would ben­e­fit from the in­creased build­ing al­lo­ca­tion.

The Com­mis­sion­er, how­ev­er, did not re­spond be­fore press time.

Po­lice Bud­get: The In­creas­es

Re­vised 2026 v Bud­get 2027

Al­lo­ca­tion/Project Re­vised 2026 2027 In­crease

To­tal De­vel­op­ment Fund­ing $70.9M $230.5M $159.7M

Con­sol­i­dat­ed Fund $60.9M $186.1M $125.2M

In­fra­struc­ture De­vel­op­ment Fund $10M $44.4M $34.4M

Coastal & River­ine Pa­trol Unit $914,000 $10M $9.086M

Home & Busi­ness In­va­sion Task Force $825,000 $12M $11.175M

Air Sup­port/Drone Unit Up­grades $1.6M $5M $3.4M

Sta­tion & Build­ing Im­prove­ments $4M $26M $22M

Sta­tion & Build­ing Im­prove­ments - To­ba­go - $3.5M $3.5M

Las Lo­mas Po­lice Sta­tion Con­struc­tion - $1.5M $1.5M

Ste Madeleine Po­lice Sta­tion Works - $5M $5M

Po­lice Equip­ment: De­vel­op­ment $18.5M $20M $1.5M

Oth­er Mi­nor Equip­ment: Re­cur­rent, Trinidad $12M $20M $8M

Po­lice Ve­hi­cles: De­vel­op­ment $9.7M $20M $10.3M

Po­lice Acad­e­my De­vel­op­ment Works $2.5M $7M $4.5M

Of­fi­cer Train­ing & De­vel­op­ment $1.75M $4.8M $3.05M

= No al­lo­ca­tion shown

Fig­ures round­ed; in­creas­es cal­cu­lat­ed be­fore round­ing

Se­lect­ed Projects do not add up to the to­tal.

The two fund­ing sources are in­clud­ed in the to­tal.

Oth­er mi­nor equip­ment (re­cur­rent) is sep­a­rate from the de­vel­op­ment to­tal.

Source: Min­istry of Fi­nance - De­vel­op­ment Pro­gramme pp 149-152, 280; Re­cur­rent Es­ti­mates p328