Suzanne Shep­pard

Var­i­ous arms of the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty will ben­e­fit from sig­nif­i­cant al­lo­ca­tions in the 2016 Pub­lic Sec­tor In­vest­ment Pro­gramme (PSIP), with the largest amount go­ing to the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice "to ef­fec­tive­ly be­ing crime un­der con­trol and to pro­vide a safe and se­cure en­vi­ron­ment for all cit­i­zens."

In his bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion on Mon­day, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert an­nounced that $10.810 bil­lion will be spent on Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty dur­ing the fis­cal year. It is the largest al­lo­ca­tion out of to­tal pro­ject­ed rev­enue of $60.287 bil­lion.

The PSIP, one of doc­u­ments ac­com­pa­ny­ing the ac­tu­al bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion, high­lights a pro­gramme of works over the next sev­er­al months to up­grade the coun­try's law en­force­ment in­fra­struc­ture, in­clud­ing con­struc­tion and up­grades to po­lice sta­tions, a $28 mil­lion in­vest­ment in crime and vi­o­lence re­duc­tion pro­grammes in 22 high-risk com­mu­ni­ties across the coun­try and con­struc­tion of a cor­rec­tion­al fa­cil­i­ty in To­ba­go.

In the case of the TTPS, $148.4 mil­lion has been al­lo­cat­ed un­der the PSIP for var­i­ous projects. Of this amount, $22.4 mil­lion is to be spent for im­prove­ment works at po­lice sta­tions; up­grade works at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing in Port-of-Spain; re­fur­bish­ment of five floors at River­side Plaza to cre­ate of­fice spaces; and new fa­cil­i­ties at the Traf­fic and High­way Pa­trol Branch.

In To­ba­go, there will be up­grades at the Scar­bor­ough Po­lice Sta­tion to pro­vide of­fice ac­com­mo­da­tion for the Vic­tim Sup­port and Task Force Units and work will be­gin on im­prov­ing the sew­er sys­tem at the Mo­ri­ah Po­lice Sta­tion.

In ad­di­tion, $100 mil­lion has been al­lo­cat­ed for Phase II works for con­struc­tion of eight po­lice sta­tions, in­clud­ing two in To­ba­go.

Un­der the head­ing of pub­lic safe­ty and cit­i­zen se­cu­ri­ty, $28 mil­lion is be­ing in­vest­ed in 22 com­mu­ni­ties, in­clud­ing Beetham Gar­dens, Laven­tille, San Fer­nan­do and Ch­agua­nas, through the IDB-as­sist­ed Cit­i­zen Se­cu­ri­ty Pro­gramme (CSP).

Among the ini­tia­tives to be im­ple­ment­ed dur­ing the fis­cal year is in­vest­ment of youth friend­ly space to ac­com­mo­date skills build­ing and train­ing pro­grammes.

A Com­mu­ni­ty Me­dia Pro­duc­tion Pro­gramme will pro­vide ba­sic skills in videog­ra­phy, cam­era op­er­a­tions and edit­ing. In ad­di­tion, do­mes­tic vi­o­lence clin­ics will be es­tab­lished in 16 CSP com­mu­ni­ties.

There are al­so plans for an In­jury Sur­veil­lance Sys­tem to cap­ture da­ta on per­sons who sus­tained in­juries from gun vi­o­lence and sought treat­ment at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

An in­vest­ment of $407.2 mil­lion in the T&T Coast Guard will go in­to boost­ing bor­der se­cu­ri­ty, im­prov­ing in­fra­struc­ture at all bases and en­hanc­ing the coun­try's naval as­sets. Of this amount, $358.7 mil­lion has been set aside to pay for 13 coast guard ves­sels–six have al­ready been de­liv­ered and sev­en will be de­liv­ered in 2016.

Un­der the PSIP, $3 mil­lion will be pro­vid­ed for es­tab­lish­ment of a Joint Bor­der Pro­tec­tion Agency. The pro­posed agency will "en­sure ap­pro­pri­ate mil­i­tary as­sets are ac­quired, de­ployed and main­tained to utilise in­for­ma­tion, in­te­gra­tion and rapid re­sponse of all agen­cies to meet all ex­ter­nal threats."

The T&T Air Guard has been al­lo­cat­ed $126.7 mil­lion for main­te­nance and train­ing sup­port for the ac­qui­si­tion of four AW 139 Medi­um Twin Tur­bine He­li­copters.

Key projects to be un­der­tak­en in the Prison Ser­vice with an al­lo­ca­tion of $59.4 mil­lion in­clude:

�2 Con­struc­tion of a nurs­ery at the Women's Prison

�2 Out­fit­ting of the East­ern Cor­rec­tion­al Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­tre at San­ta Rosa, Ari­ma

�2 A close cir­cuit tele­vi­sion sys­tem for Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison

�2 De­signs for con­struc­tion of a new Re­mand Yard at Gold­en Grove

�2 Con­struc­tion of a cor­rec­tion­al fa­cil­i­ty at Hope, To­ba­go.

The $60 mil­lion al­lo­cat­ed to the T&T Fire Ser­vice will be used main­ly for con­struc­tion work and out­fit­ting of the re­cent­ly opened Ma­yaro Fire Sta­tion. The work is due to be com­plet­ed with­in the first quar­ter of fis­cal 2016.