Gonzales questions if citizens getting value for money spent by TTPS

Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

For­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les has crit­i­cised the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice’s (TTPS) es­ca­lat­ing over­time bill, ques­tion­ing whether tax­pay­ers are see­ing re­sults from the hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars be­ing spent.

Ac­cord­ing to in­for­ma­tion re­ceived via a Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act re­quest, the TTPS has paid near­ly $800 mil­lion in over­time over the past two years and eight months, with spend­ing in the first eight months of 2026 al­ready ex­ceed­ing the to­tal paid out in 2025.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Gon­za­les said the Op­po­si­tion raised con­cerns about over­time ex­pen­di­ture dur­ing the Mid-year Bud­get Re­view and de­lib­er­a­tions of the Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee.

“At that time, we ob­served an al­lo­ca­tion of about $300 mil­lion for Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty, and when we scru­ti­nised it, we learnt it was in­tend­ed for over­time pay­ments,” he said.

Gon­za­les ar­gued that the State of Emer­gency (SoE) has im­posed a sig­nif­i­cant fi­nan­cial bur­den on tax­pay­ers while plac­ing added strain on po­lice of­fi­cers.

“It is clear that the Gov­ern­ment’s SoE has cost tax­pay­ers hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars be­cause law en­force­ment of­fi­cers con­tin­ue to be bur­dened by long over­time hours,” he said.

He said the ef­fects go be­yond the fi­nan­cial cost, warn­ing that ex­tend­ed work hours are tak­ing a toll on of­fi­cers’ well-be­ing.

“It con­tin­ues to have a se­ri­ous im­pact on their men­tal, phys­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal health.”

Gon­za­les al­so cau­tioned that over­time costs could rise even fur­ther as the TTPS de­ploys of­fi­cers to ad­di­tion­al po­lice posts na­tion­wide.

“The TTPS does not have the man­pow­er re­quired to ad­e­quate­ly staff the 30 po­lice posts be­ing de­ployed across the coun­try,” he said.

Main­tain­ing those fa­cil­i­ties, he added, could dri­ve ex­pen­di­ture be­yond the cur­rent fig­ure.

“It will re­quire con­tin­ued spend­ing, per­haps far more than $800 mil­lion, to keep those po­lice posts op­er­a­tional.”

While ex­press­ing sym­pa­thy for of­fi­cers work­ing ex­tend­ed hours, Gon­za­les ques­tioned whether the ex­pen­di­ture was trans­lat­ing in­to mea­sur­able crime-fight­ing gains.

“Whilst I feel for the of­fi­cers, I know that this sit­u­a­tion, like the SoE, will have no im­pact on crime,” he said, chal­leng­ing Gov­ern­ment to show what tax­pay­ers are re­ceiv­ing in re­turn for the sub­stan­tial in­vest­ment.

“Has the mur­der rate im­proved? Has the de­tec­tion rate for se­ri­ous crime im­proved? What about ac­cess to and the de­liv­ery of jus­tice? Has any of that im­proved for the price be­ing paid?”