CHESTER SAM­BRA­NO

chester.sam­bra­no@guardian.co.tt

Af­ter 30 years, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) is get­ting a new home. The pro­posed Abat­toir Road, Sea Lots head­quar­ters is es­ti­mat­ed to cost close to $300 mil­lion.

Ac­cord­ing to the Pub­lic Sec­tor In­vest­ment Pro­gramme 2021 (PSIP) doc­u­ment re­leased by the Min­istry of Fi­nance dur­ing Mon­day’s Bud­get, the project is be­ing un­der­tak­en in an ef­fort to save on rental cost in and around Port-of-Spain and to con­sol­i­date its key op­er­a­tions un­der one roof.

The pro­posed new build­ing will house the ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cers, com­pris­ing the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, Deputy Com­mis­sion­ers, head of the ex­ec­u­tive man­age­ment and man­agers of the In­tel­li­gence and In­ves­tiga­tive Units.

The doc­u­ment states, “It is en­vi­sioned that this will al­low for en­hanced co­or­di­na­tion be­tween de­ci­sion-mak­ers and op­er­a­tional units, and re­al time ex­e­cu­tion of projects, de­ci­sions and se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures.”

The es­ti­mat­ed cost of the project is $243.8 mil­lion (VAT ex­clu­sive) and the pro­posed works for 2021 in­clude com­ple­tion of de­signs and pro­cure­ment of a main con­trac­tor. It adds that an al­lo­ca­tion of $15 mil­lion will be pro­vid­ed in fis­cal 2021 to cov­er the cost of de­signs and the con­struc­tion con­tract, ini­ti­ate the ten­der pro­cure­ment process, site prepa­ra­tion, foun­da­tion and prepara­to­ry works and com­mence­ment of con­struc­tion.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment on the project yes­ter­day, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith ex­plained that the sav­ings on month­ly rentals once the head­quar­ters is com­plet­ed would be over $3 mil­lion. He said the lo­ca­tion was cho­sen af­ter a cost-ben­e­fit analy­sis was com­plet­ed.

“The po­lice head­quar­ters will give im­me­di­ate ac­cess to get any­where,” Grif­fith said, adding the Sea Lots site was se­lect­ed be­cause it is owned by the TTPS and as such “it pos­es no ad­di­tion­al ex­pense to the tax­pay­er with re­gards to ac­qui­si­tion by the State.”

He added that the plan is to have all the op­er­a­tional arms of the TTPS un­der one roof.

“That be­comes the en­gine room,” he said, not­ing this will im­prove the op­er­a­tional ef­fec­tive­ness of the Po­lice Ser­vice.

Grif­fith said it will be sim­i­lar to the One Po­lice Plaza mod­el adopt­ed by New York Po­lice De­part­ment (NYPD).

The old po­lice head­quar­ters, which was lo­cat­ed on Sackville and St Vin­cent Streets in Port-of-Spain, was de­stroyed dur­ing the 1990 at­tempt­ed coup.

Al­so in the PSIP is a plan to up­grade the Po­lice Train­ing Acad­e­my so that it can ful­fil its prop­er role, which in­cludes “a man­date to ac­cel­er­ate re­cruit­ment as a strat­e­gy to as­sist in elim­i­nat­ing the short­age of of­fi­cers.”

Ac­cord­ing to the doc­u­ment, ad­di­tion­al dor­mi­to­ry fa­cil­i­ties are ur­gent­ly re­quired to pro­vide in­creased res­i­den­tial train­ing ca­pac­i­ty. It said oth­er works are al­so re­quired, such as paving of the roads, up­grade and re­fur­bish­ment work to the age­ing build­ings, build­ing of a mock court­room, al­lo­ca­tion of space for a mu­se­um, re-es­tab­lish­ment of the mo­tor pool and oth­er projects. A pre-fea­si­bil­i­ty study is to be con­duct­ed for the pro­posed works to the PTA.

An­oth­er key as­pect of polic­ing be­ing ad­dressed in the PSIP is po­lice ve­hi­cles.

It said, “The sup­ply of ve­hi­cles is crit­i­cal to in­creas­ing the mo­bil­i­ty and vis­i­bil­i­ty of of­fi­cers in achiev­ing the strate­gic goal of de­tect­ing and re­duc­ing crime.”

The doc­u­ment said a to­tal of $25 mil­lion will be al­lo­cat­ed to sup­port this ini­tia­tive. It ex­plained that the TTPS is aim­ing to ex­pand its fleet by three (300) ve­hi­cles, from 1,633 to 1,933, in­clud­ing the pro­cure­ment of ar­moured per­son­nel car­ri­ers and sport util­i­ty ve­hi­cles.

“This in­creased mo­bil­i­ty will im­prove the ef­fi­cien­cy and ef­fec­tive­ness of the TTPS by im­prov­ing the lev­el of ser­vice pro­vid­ed to all cit­i­zens, in­creas­ing po­lice vis­i­bil­i­ty na­tion­wide and im­prov­ing its op­er­a­tional ca­pa­bil­i­ty through­out the or­gan­i­sa­tion,” the PSIP doc­u­ment said.

There are al­so plans to re­fur­bish River­side Plaza, es­tab­lish po­lice youth club fa­cil­i­ties, un­der­take re­pair works to the ex­ist­ing po­lice sta­tions and pur­chase es­sen­tial tech­no­log­i­cal equip­ment re­quired by the TTPS.