PM: New recruits will bolster police-army posts

Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­[email protected]

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has sought to ad­dress con­cerns over whether the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) has enough of­fi­cers to ad­e­quate­ly staff the Gov­ern­ment’s planned 30 joint po­lice-army posts, say­ing new re­cruits are be­ing added to the ser­vice as the ini­tia­tive is rolled out.

The is­sue of man­pow­er has been among the con­cerns raised by the Op­po­si­tion over the Gov­ern­ment’s plan to es­tab­lish the posts across Trinidad and To­ba­go over the next four months.

In a so­cial me­dia post ac­com­pa­nied by an an­i­mat­ed video pro­mot­ing the ini­tia­tive yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the ex­pan­sion of the TTPS is tak­ing place along­side the es­tab­lish­ment of the new posts.

“At the same time, new re­cruits are join­ing the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice, in­creas­ing the num­ber of trained of­fi­cers avail­able to pro­tect cit­i­zens and re­spond when help is need­ed,” the Prime Min­is­ter said.

The Gov­ern­ment has al­ready sig­nalled plans for a sig­nif­i­cant in­crease in the strength of the po­lice ser­vice.

In May, Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der said there were moves to in­crease the TTPS’ strength from 7,884 of­fi­cers to 10,200, an in­crease of more than 2,300 of­fi­cers.

The Op­po­si­tion has ques­tioned sev­er­al as­pects of the pro­posed posts, in­clud­ing how they will be staffed, their fund­ing and the re­spec­tive roles of po­lice and mil­i­tary per­son­nel.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has al­so ques­tioned whether mem­bers of the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force (TTDF) will be grant­ed po­lice pow­ers un­der the ini­tia­tive and what cri­te­ria were used to se­lect the lo­ca­tions.

The Gov­ern­ment, how­ev­er, has main­tained that the posts will sup­ple­ment rather than re­place the coun­try’s ex­ist­ing po­lice sta­tions.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said they are in­tend­ed to bring the pro­tec­tive ser­vices clos­er to com­mu­ni­ties and im­prove the abil­i­ty of of­fi­cers to re­spond to in­ci­dents.

Ac­cord­ing to the video, the posts will form part of “one con­nect­ed na­tion­al net­work” and will be strate­gi­cal­ly po­si­tioned to widen the se­cu­ri­ty pres­ence across the coun­try.

“Feel­ing safe should not de­pend on how far you live from the near­est po­lice sta­tion. That is why the Gov­ern­ment is es­tab­lish­ing 30 new po­lice posts across Trinidad and To­ba­go,” the nar­ra­tion stat­ed.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the ob­jec­tive was to pro­vide “a stronger se­cu­ri­ty pres­ence, greater ac­cess to as­sis­tance and more con­fi­dence when you leave home, trav­el to work or spend time in pub­lic spaces.”

“This is about mak­ing you and your fam­i­ly feel safer,” she said.

The 30 posts are ex­pect­ed to in­clude both TTPS and TTDF per­son­nel, with the Gov­ern­ment pre­sent­ing the ini­tia­tive as an­oth­er com­po­nent of its wider crime-fight­ing strat­e­gy.

The video con­clud­ed with the Gov­ern­ment’s mes­sage, “Promis­es made, promis­es kept.”