TTPS to get $5m for rental vehicles to be used in covert SoE operations

Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Gov­ern­ment's $2.93 bil­lion in sup­ple­men­tal funds for 27 di­vi­sions for the rest of the fis­cal year in­cludes $5 mil­lion for the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice to meet costs in­curred for rental of ad­di­tion­al ve­hi­cles for "as­sign­ment to spe­cial­ist sec­tions to be used in covert op­er­a­tions dur­ing the present" State of Emer­gency.

Funds are al­so list­ed for the De­fence Min­istry to "meet the costs of host­ing" the 2026 In­de­pen­dence Day Pa­rade - as well as $106.2m for re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions; $375m to pro­vide for WASA and $18m to pay out­stand­ing funds to Cari­com's Sec­re­tari­at.

These are among items which the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives' Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee (SFC) will dis­cuss on Fri­day.

In the SFC, Op­po­si­tion MPs ques­tion min­is­ters on items pro­posed for sup­ple­men­tal fund­ing and vari­a­tion - shift­ing - of funds among de­part­ments in mid-year re­view of the Bud­get.

On Mon­day, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dave Tan­coo de­liv­ers the re­view in Par­lia­ment, when a Fi­nance (Sup­ple­men­ta­tion and Vari­a­tion of Ap­pro­pri­a­tion bill) in­volv­ing the ap­proved changes will be de­bat­ed.

Last week, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced Fri­day's SFC meet­ing, say­ing Gov­ern­ment is seek­ing $2.93B to sup­ple­ment the 2026 Bud­get. The lat­ter is $59.2B.

The $2.93B will fund ur­gent and crit­i­cal re­cur­rent and cap­i­tal ex­pen­di­ture to Sep­tem­ber's end of the 2026 fis­cal year in ar­eas where in­suf­fi­cient/no al­lo­ca­tion was pro­vid­ed.

Fund­ing is re­quired for:

* Goods and Ser­vices - $343,046,510

* Cur­rent Trans­fers and Sub­si­dies - $1,921,379,338

* Cur­rent Trans­fers to Statu­to­ry Boards and sim­i­lar bod­ies - $570,199,800

* De­vel­op­ment Pro­gramme - $92,746,203.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said $2.8B of the $2.93B is for in­creas­es for 62,050 work­ers now get­ting high­er salaries. They in­volve the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion, Na­tion­al Union of Gov­ern­ment and Fed­er­at­ed Work­ers, West In­dies Group of Uni­ver­si­ty Teach­ers, T&T De­fence Force, Con­trac­tors and Gen­er­al Work­ers' Union, Amal­ga­mat­ed Work­ers' Union and teach­ers.

Among the 27 di­vi­sions re­ceiv­ing sup­ple­men­tal funds, the high­est is for Pub­lic Util­i­ties ($513.6m), Health ($499.9m), En­er­gy ($454m), Works ($312.9m).

Pro­posed for TTPS is $63.2m and $39.2m for De­fence. Low­est pro­pos­al is for Statu­to­ry Au­thor­i­ties Com­mis­sion ($285,700).

Fund­ing for salaries/wages/gra­tu­ities ap­ply in al­most all 27 di­vi­sions.

The SFC will al­so con­sid­er vari­a­tion of the Bud­get Ap­pro­pri­a­tion in the sum of $737,522,918 to fund ur­gent ex­pen­di­ture to Sep­tem­ber 30.

This will:

* Re­plen­ish fund­ing used to pay an ad­vance on the ar­rears of Salaries and Cost of Liv­ing Al­lowance owed to month­ly paid of­fi­cers from De­cem­ber 2025;

* Meet cost of the in­crease in Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Scheme (NIS) con­tri­bu­tions from 13.2 per cent to 16.2 per cent ef­fect­ed Jan­u­ary 2026;

* Pro­vide pay­ment of al­lowances/over­time to month­ly paid of­fi­cers;

* Re­plen­ish the High­ways Di­vi­sion's al­lo­ca­tion to com­plete 2026 works;

* Meet op­er­a­tional ex­pens­es con­cern­ing the es­tab­lish­ment of the Na­tion­al Pro­gramme for Up­keep of Pub­lic Spaces (NPUPS) for April to Sep­tem­ber 2026 and con­tin­ued em­ploy­ee en­gage­ment;

* Fa­cil­i­tate con­tin­u­a­tion of em­ploy­ment of work­ers through the Na­tion­al Re­cruit­ment Dri­ve Ini­tia­tive to the end of fis­cal 2026;

* Han­dle ex­pen­di­ture to­wards the deficit on fer­ry op­er­a­tions.

Sup­ple­men­tal funds for some en­ti­ties in­clude for:

AT­TOR­NEY GEN­ER­AL'S OF­FICE: $75m for pay­ment of le­gal fees to lo­cal and for­eign at­tor­neys. Gen­er­al Ad­min­is­tra­tion ($50m) and Crim­i­nal Law De­part­ment ($25m).

RUR­AL DE­VEL­OP­MENT & LO­CAL GOV­ERN­MENT: $106,295,000 to sup­ple­ment pro­vi­sion of 14 Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tions to the end of fis­cal 2026; $10.7m for the re­cruit­ment of 22 con­tract­ed per­sons for the new Lo­cal Eco­nom­ic De­vel­op­ment Unit.

ED­U­CA­TION: $2.9m for pay­ment to Pub­lic Trans­port Ser­vice Cor­po­ra­tion for maxi taxi school trans­porta­tion ser­vices; $20m for school sup­plies and award of book grants to needy Pri­ma­ry and Sec­ondary stu­dents.

PUB­LIC UTIL­I­TIES: $375.8m to sup­ple­ment pro­vi­sion for WASA to end of fis­cal 2026; $38.8m to fa­cil­i­tate re­funds to T&TEC for the 35 per cent Re­bate pro­gramme on elec­tric­i­ty bills; $3m for op­er­a­tional cost, in­clud­ing emol­u­ments for ad­min­is­tra­tive staff at­tached to CEPEP.

TTPS: $20m for pur­chase of stan­dard du­ty uni­forms and Dig­i­tal Cam­ou­flage uni­forms for of­fi­cers of the Mul­ti-Op­er­a­tional Po­lice Sec­tion (MOPS), In­ter-Agency Task Force (IATF) and Guard and Emer­gency Branch (GEB); $5m to meet cost in­curred for rental of ad­di­tion­al ve­hi­cles for as­sign­ment to spe­cial­ist sec­tions to be used in covert op­er­a­tions dur­ing the present SoE. In ad­di­tion, to cov­er out­stand­ing pay­ments for ve­hi­cle rental for fis­cal 2025.

DE­FENCE: $2.3m for the cost of host­ing the 2026 In­de­pen­dence Day Pa­rade; $11.9m for Air Guard costs as­so­ci­at­ed with re­pairs/main­te­nance of four he­li­copters; $16.1m for equip­ment up­grade cost at the Na­tion­al Coastal Sur­veil­lance Radar Cen­tre.

FOR­EIGN & CARI­COM AF­FAIRS: $18m to set­tle out­stand­ing amounts owed to Cari­com's Sec­re­tari­at for Oc­to­ber 2024 to March 2025; $2.7m for Gov­ern­ment's con­tri­bu­tion to Unit­ed Na­tions Peace­keep­ing Op­er­a­tions, Jan­u­ary 2025 to De­cem­ber 2026.

TER­TIARY ED­U­CA­TION & SKILLS TRAIN­ING: $13m as a re­sult of the pay­ment of ar­rears of salaries owed to aca­d­e­m­ic/se­nior ad­min­is­tra­tive staff of the Uni­ver­si­ty Cen­tre and Glob­al Cam­pus for Au­gust 1, 2014 to Ju­ly 31, 2020.

EN­ER­GY: $454m to set­tle sub­sidy li­a­bil­i­ties owed to Na­tion­al Pe­tro­le­um Mar­ket­ing Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed; and Unit­ed In­de­pen­dent Pe­tro­le­um Mar­ket­ing Com­pa­ny.

Among De­vel­op­ment fund­ing is $30m for the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry's ac­qui­si­tion of lap­tops for Form One stu­dents for 2026/2027 aca­d­e­m­ic year; and $13.7m for re­pairs to the res­i­dence of the Per­ma­nent Rep­re­sen­ta­tive of T&T's Mis­sion to the UN.

Pres­i­dent - $1,000,000

Ju­di­cia­ry - $39,154,220

In­dus­tri­al Court - $685,000

Par­lia­ment - $3,228,200

Statu­to­ry Au­thor­i­ties, Ser­vice Com­mis­sions - $285,700

To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly - $94,000,000

Cen­tral Ad­min­is­tra­tive Ser­vices, To­ba­go - $465,940

Per­son­nel De­part­ment - $2,518,670

Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al - $75,000,000

Ed­u­ca­tion - $127,779,300

Health- $499,978,970

Labour, Small and Mi­cro En­ter­prise De­vel­op­ment - $4 969,800

Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Ar­ti­fi­cial In­tel­li­gence - $68,648,710

Trans­port and Civ­il Avi­a­tion - $21,100,000

In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion - $1,250,000

Pub­lic Util­i­ties - $513,641,000

En­er­gy - $454,000,000

Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment - $188,210,313

Hous­ing - $197,364,564

T&T Po­lice Ser­vice - $64,200,000

For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs - $34,516,469

Plan­ning - $1,628,803

Works - $362,944,942

Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion and Skills Train­ing - $19,800,000

Min­istry of the Peo­ple, So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices - $68,445,000

De­fence - $39,245,000

Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment - $43,311,250