Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der is right to ques­tion how the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice’s (TTPS’) tele­phone spend­ing reached more than $93 mil­lion over four fi­nan­cial years. His re­sponse sug­gests a will­ing­ness to ex­am­ine in­her­it­ed ex­pen­di­tures rather than ap­prove them with­out scruti­ny. That is a wel­come start. The pub­lic, how­ev­er, now needs a prompt, com­pre­hen­sive re­view and de­ci­sive ac­tion based on its find­ings.

The con­cern is not mere­ly the size of the fig­ure. The spend­ing re­port­ed­ly cov­ered fixed lines, mo­bile ser­vices, air­time and da­ta, yet no de­tailed break­down has been made pub­lic. At the same time, cit­i­zens have of­ten com­plained about dif­fi­cul­ties reach­ing po­lice sta­tions. That ap­par­ent con­tra­dic­tion does not, on its own, prove waste or mis­man­age­ment, but it cer­tain­ly war­rants a fuller ex­pla­na­tion. Trans­paren­cy is es­sen­tial if pub­lic con­fi­dence is to be main­tained.

The re­port­ed an­nu­al pay­ments de­clined from $32.22 mil­lion in 2021-2022 to $13.4 mil­lion in 2025-2026. That re­duc­tion may in­di­cate tighter con­trols, low­er us­age or changes in ser­vice arrange­ments. What­ev­er the rea­son, the fig­ures alone do not an­swer the cen­tral ques­tion of whether the spend­ing was jus­ti­fied and prop­er­ly man­aged.

Min­is­ter Alexan­der’s com­mit­ment to ask why pay­ments are be­ing made, and his em­pha­sis on clos­er over­sight, are ap­pro­pri­ate. Pub­lic funds de­mand care­ful stew­ard­ship. A hands-on ap­proach can be use­ful, but mean­ing­ful over­sight re­quires more than reg­u­lar dis­cus­sions with the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er. It must be sup­port­ed by prop­er records, clear pro­ce­dures and con­sis­tent fol­low-through.

The re­view should es­tab­lish pre­cise­ly how the $93 mil­lion to­tal was cal­cu­lat­ed and rec­on­cile spend­ing year by year. It should sep­a­rate costs for land­lines, mo­bile plans, da­ta ser­vices and air­time; iden­ti­fy the num­ber of ser­vices in­volved; and ex­am­ine con­tracts, in­voic­es, us­age records, late fees and ap­proval process­es. The pub­lic de­serves to know whether the ex­pen­di­ture was op­er­a­tional­ly nec­es­sary, whether it was prop­er­ly au­tho­rised and what re­forms may be need­ed to pre­vent avoid­able costs.

The is­sue of de­vice pur­chas­es al­so re­quires at­ten­tion. The TTPS re­port­ed­ly ac­quired 516 phones at a cost of $127,339, while in­ves­ti­ga­tions con­tin­ue in­to cas­es in­volv­ing de­vices that were un­ac­count­ed for, lost or not re­turned. Those in­quiries should de­ter­mine the facts, seek re­cov­ery of pub­lic as­sets where pos­si­ble and re­port their find­ings with­out pre­judg­ing any in­di­vid­ual.

This re­view of­fers an op­por­tu­ni­ty to strength­en ac­count­abil­i­ty and re­build trust in the po­lice ser­vice. Reg­u­lar pub­lic re­port­ing on spend­ing and ser­vice im­prove­ments would demon­strate that scruti­ny is pro­duc­ing re­sults. Min­is­ter Alexan­der de­serves cred­it for ask­ing dif­fi­cult ques­tions. That cred­it should now be matched by ur­gency. The re­view should have a clear timetable, its find­ings should be pub­lished and any cor­rec­tive ac­tion im­ple­ment­ed swift­ly. The pub­lic should not have to wait in­def­i­nite­ly for an­swers about a bill of this mag­ni­tude. Fur­ther­more, a trans­par­ent re­view can safe­guard tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey, im­prove ac­count­abil­i­ty and help re­store con­fi­dence in the TTPS.