$6M TO FIX TOP COP’S HOME

Sto­ries by Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­[email protected]

Gov­ern­ment has al­lo­cat­ed $6 mil­lion to re­fur­bish the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice’s of­fi­cial res­i­dence, which Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der says is mould-in­fest­ed and cur­rent­ly un­in­hab­it­able.

The min­is­ter said the swim­ming pool on the com­pound is al­so in need of at­ten­tion as he de­scribed it as “mos­qui­to-in­fest­ed” and green.

Alexan­der dis­closed the con­di­tion of the prop­er­ty while re­spond­ing to Arou­ca/Lopinot MP Mar­vin Gon­za­les dur­ing the Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee’s ex­am­i­na­tion of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice’s $3.049 bil­lion al­lo­ca­tion yes­ter­day.

The pro­posed ex­pen­di­ture ap­pears un­der “Up­grade Works to the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Res­i­dence” in the In­fra­struc­ture De­vel­op­ment Fund.

“That’s not the mould-in­fest­ed build­ing?” Alexan­der asked when the al­lo­ca­tion was brought up.

Ques­tioned about the scope of the project, he said the build­ing had been used by pre­vi­ous po­lice com­mis­sion­ers but re­quired in­ter­ven­tion to ad­dress its con­di­tion.

“If they had done an in­ves­ti­ga­tion, they would have no­ticed that the build­ing is ‘mould­ed’,” he said.

“And as a re­sult of that, that needs to be changed.”

The ex­change iden­ti­fied roof re­pairs, elec­tri­cal and plumb­ing works, and floor­ing among the pro­posed up­grades.

The con­di­tion of the pool was al­so brought up by Alexan­der.

“And the green­ness of the pool,” Alexan­der said.

“The what?” Gon­za­les asked?

“The ‘moulds’,” Alexan­der re­spond­ed, “and the al­gae in the pool. The mos­qui­to-in­fest­ed pool.”

Gon­za­les al­so asked whether the res­i­dence had ever been oc­cu­pied by some­one who did not hold the of­fice of com­mis­sion­er of po­lice.

“I can’t re­call,” Alexan­der replied.

The dis­cus­sion then re­turned to the pro­posed works and the arrange­ments for car­ry­ing them out.

Asked how far the TTPS had pro­gressed with plan­ning and im­ple­men­ta­tion, Alexan­der said a pro­pos­al had been re­ceived from the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (Ude­cott).

He con­firmed that Ude­cott would act as project man­ag­er and, when pressed by Gon­za­les, al­so con­firmed that the com­pa­ny would man­age pro­cure­ment.

The of­fi­cial res­i­dence is lo­cat­ed with­in the St James Bar­racks/Po­lice Train­ing Acad­e­my com­pound on West­ern Main Road, St James.

The res­i­dence project comes against the back­drop of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s re­peat­ed pub­lic ex­pres­sions of sup­port for Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro.

Dur­ing a vis­it to To­ba­go last week, at the re­cent­ly con­struct­ed Sig­nal Hill po­lice post, Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­scribed Gue­var­ro as “the best Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice I have ever worked with.”

The $6 mil­lion is part of the TTPS’s $44.404 mil­lion de­vel­op­ment pro­vi­sion through the In­fra­struc­ture De­vel­op­ment Fund for 2027.

A fur­ther $186.118 mil­lion is pro­posed through the Con­sol­i­dat­ed Fund, bring­ing com­bined po­lice de­vel­op­ment fund­ing to ap­prox­i­mate­ly $230.5 mil­lion.

Alexan­der al­so dis­closed that UDe­COTT had rec­om­mend­ed re­lo­cat­ing of­fi­cers from the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing to fa­cil­i­tate up­grades, for which $20 mil­lion is al­lo­cat­ed in 2027. He said the move was not yet com­plete and con­firmed that nei­ther the works nor pro­cure­ment had start­ed.

“The rec­om­men­da­tion is that it be de­cant­ed,” he said, ex­plain­ing why re­fur­bish­ment had not pro­gressed as an­tic­i­pat­ed.

Mean­while, Alexan­der said the TTPS ex­pects to re­cruit 800 of­fi­cers dur­ing fis­cal 2027, ar­gu­ing that strength­en­ing man­pow­er would help re­duce re­liance on over­time.

The ser­vice has a $458 mil­lion over­time pro­vi­sion, down from a re­vised $500 mil­lion in 2026.

How­ev­er, he ac­knowl­edged that some of­fi­cers had yet to sub­mit out­stand­ing claims and, when asked whether the al­lo­ca­tion would be suf­fi­cient, replied, “If it is not suf­fi­cient, we will re­turn.”

Po­lice sta­tions, spe­cial­ist units get fund­ing boost

• Po­lice sta­tions and build­ings: $26 mil­lion, up from $4 mil­lion in the re­vised 2026 es­ti­mates.

• Po­lice works in To­ba­go: $3.5 mil­lion.

• Ve­hi­cle pur­chas­es: $20 mil­lion, up from $9.7 mil­lion.

• Equip­ment: $20 mil­lion, up from $18.5 mil­lion.

• Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions/Counter Home and Busi­ness In­va­sion Task Force: $12 mil­lion, com­pared with $825,000.

• Coastal and River­ine Pa­trol Unit: $10 mil­lion, up from $914,000.

• Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing up­grades: $20 mil­lion al­lo­cat­ed for 2027.

• Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice’s of­fi­cial res­i­dence: $6 mil­lion for re­fur­bish­ment.

• TTPS over­time: $458 mil­lion, down from the re­vised $500 mil­lion in 2026.