Opposition protests missed chance to question police spending

Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­[email protected]

The Op­po­si­tion is lament­ing that it was un­able to ques­tion the Gov­ern­ment about mil­lions of dol­lars al­lo­cat­ed for po­lice in­fra­struc­ture, equip­ment and oth­er de­vel­op­ment projects af­ter blam­ing Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee (SFC) chair­man Jagdeo Singh for mov­ing past a key ex­pen­di­ture item dur­ing yes­ter­day’s SFC ex­am­i­na­tion of the 2027 Bud­get with­out paus­ing for their ques­tions.

Singh, how­ev­er, main­tained that he had fol­lowed the es­tab­lished pro­ce­dure, in­sist­ing that he paused af­ter an­nounc­ing the ex­pen­di­ture item and moved on on­ly af­ter no Op­po­si­tion mem­ber in­di­cat­ed an in­ten­tion to ask ques­tions.

The dis­pute arose as the com­mit­tee ex­am­ined the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice’s (TTPS) $3.049 bil­lion al­lo­ca­tion, with Op­po­si­tion MPs protest­ing that they were not giv­en suf­fi­cient time to raise ques­tions about ex­pen­di­ture un­der the De­vel­op­ment Pro­gramme.

At the cen­tre of the dis­agree­ment was the So­cial In­fra­struc­ture al­lo­ca­tion, which con­tains much of the Po­lice Ser­vice’s de­vel­op­ment fund­ing, in­clud­ing $20 mil­lion ear­marked for the pur­chase of equip­ment.

That al­lo­ca­tion is par­tic­u­lar­ly sig­nif­i­cant giv­en on­go­ing con­cerns about the avail­abil­i­ty of body-worn cam­eras for po­lice of­fi­cers con­duct­ing op­er­a­tions un­der the re­cent­ly en­act­ed Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Act.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar pre­vi­ous­ly stat­ed that po­lice of­fi­cers con­duct­ing spe­cial op­er­a­tions must wear body cam­eras.

How­ev­er, the leg­is­la­tion pro­vides for their use where prac­ti­ca­ble, rais­ing ques­tions about the avail­abil­i­ty of equip­ment to sup­port the Gov­ern­ment’s com­mit­ment.

The Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice has pre­vi­ous­ly in­di­cat­ed that ap­prox­i­mate­ly 100 to 180 body-worn cam­eras re­main op­er­a­tional, with their bat­ter­ies last­ing be­tween 90 min­utes and two hours.

How­ev­er, Op­po­si­tion MPs did not get the op­por­tu­ni­ty to ques­tion Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der about the pro­vi­sion af­ter Singh in­di­cat­ed that the com­mit­tee had al­ready moved on.

The Speak­er had called Item 004, So­cial In­fra­struc­ture, be­fore pro­ceed­ing to Item 005, Mul­ti­sec­toral and Oth­er Ser­vices.

Op­po­si­tion mem­bers protest­ed the move, ques­tion­ing whether the pre­vi­ous item had al­ready been passed.

“You passed 004, So­cial In­fra­struc­ture?” Trinci­ty/Mal­oney MP Camille Robin­son-Reg­is asked.

Singh con­firmed that he had.

“I didn’t re­alise that was passed,” Robin­son-Reg­is said.

An ex­change fol­lowed over whether suf­fi­cient time had been al­lowed for MPs to in­di­cate their in­ten­tion to ask ques­tions.

Singh main­tained that he had paused af­ter call­ing the item.

“I did pause. I said Item 004, So­cial In­fra­struc­ture, B, Po­lice Ser­vice, pages 150 to 151,” he in­sist­ed.

As Op­po­si­tion mem­bers ob­ject­ed, Singh said, “Could you please stop your protes­ta­tion.”

“You moved on in less than a sec­ond,” Diego Mar­tin/North East MP Colm Im­bert said.

As the ob­jec­tions con­tin­ued, Singh main­tained that no mem­ber had sig­nalled an in­ten­tion to speak be­fore he moved for­ward.

“I called it. No one raised their hand,” he de­clared.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les chal­lenged the pace at which the Speak­er was mov­ing through the es­ti­mates, ar­gu­ing that mem­bers were not al­ways giv­en suf­fi­cient op­por­tu­ni­ty to in­ter­vene.

“Some­times you move much quick­er than oth­ers, and this was one,” Beck­les told Singh.

Singh re­spond­ed that he nor­mal­ly al­lowed con­sid­er­able lee­way dur­ing the com­mit­tee’s ex­am­i­na­tion but main­tained that pro­ceed­ings had al­ready ad­vanced.

Con­tact­ed by Guardian Me­dia fol­low­ing the sit­ting, Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les ex­pressed dis­ap­point­ment over the de­vel­op­ment, ar­gu­ing it un­der­mined the Op­po­si­tion’s abil­i­ty to scru­ti­nise pub­lic ex­pen­di­ture.

“It is very un­for­tu­nate that the Op­po­si­tion was not pro­vid­ed with the op­por­tu­ni­ty to scru­ti­nise an im­por­tant line item of ex­pen­di­ture for the TTPS in the De­vel­op­ment Pro­gramme for 2027 fis­cal year,” Gon­za­les said.

He said the al­lo­ca­tion war­rant­ed ex­am­i­na­tion.

“The Op­po­si­tion was not pro­vid­ed with the op­por­tu­ni­ty to ex­am­ine and in­ter­ro­gate the al­lo­ca­tions on be­half of the cit­i­zens of this coun­try.”

He added, “This is an un­for­tu­nate de­vel­op­ment again in our Par­lia­men­tary democ­ra­cy.”