DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der has con­firmed that ap­prox­i­mate­ly 3,000 body cam­eras have been re­quest­ed for full de­ploy­ment across law en­force­ment agen­cies. He not­ed that, as of now, 970 body cam­eras are in ac­tive use by mem­bers of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice.

Con­firm­ing 3,000 body cam­eras had been re­quest­ed, Alexan­der said 970 body cam­eras are present­ly work­ing.

Alexan­der was speak­ing dur­ing yes­ter­day’s Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee (SFC), where $119,117,400 was re­quest­ed in ad­di­tion­al fund­ing for the TTPS. He stressed that the funds would ad­dress ex­ist­ing oblig­a­tions aris­ing from a short­fall in the fis­cal 2025 al­lo­ca­tion and would not fi­nance any new projects.

Among the ad­di­tion­al fund­ing, $2 mil­lion was ear­marked for the Po­lice Acad­e­my to cov­er med­ical ex­ams, poly­graph test­ing, sta­tionery items, and oth­er op­er­a­tional needs. Al­lo­ca­tions were al­so made for jan­i­to­r­i­al ser­vices, build­ing rentals, and $10 mil­lion for the main­te­nance and ac­qui­si­tion of a fleet of ve­hi­cles for the TTPS. A fur­ther $5 mil­lion was bud­get­ed to pro­vide food sup­plies for the Guard and Emer­gency Branch and the In­ter-Agency Task Force.

Alexan­der said fund­ing is be­ing re­quest­ed to en­sure the full roll­out of body cam­eras, with the goal of achiev­ing com­plete op­er­a­tional sta­tus by year’s end.

Dur­ing ques­tion­ing by Ari­ma MP and for­mer Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment min­is­ter Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, it was re­vealed that $25 mil­lion had been al­lo­cat­ed to Huawei to ful­ly op­er­a­tionalise the body cam­era sys­tem.

How­ev­er, ten­sions es­ca­lat­ed as Op­po­si­tion mem­bers pressed for fur­ther clar­i­ty on the al­lo­ca­tion. Arou­ca/Mal­oney MP and for­mer Pub­lic Util­i­ties min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les posed sev­er­al ques­tions that were pre­vi­ous­ly ad­dressed — in­clud­ing the num­ber of cam­eras in use and those in­tend­ed for full de­ploy­ment.

Ten­sions height­ened fur­ther when Gon­za­les in­quired about the to­tal con­tract cost. Alexan­der ad­mit­ted he did not have that in­for­ma­tion at the time.

“I am shocked,” Alexan­der said.

Gon­za­les re­spond­ed, “You don’t need to be. You could sim­ply say you don’t have the in­for­ma­tion.”

Alexan­der replied, “No, no, no, I know you just re­cent­ly left the (min­istry).”

SFC chair­man Jagdeo Singh in­ter­vened to cau­tion Gon­za­les not to re­spond.

“Not every nar­ra­tive has to be met with a counter-nar­ra­tive, please,” Singh said.

The min­is­ter as­sured the com­mit­tee that “it will get done, you know,” while ad­mit­ting the rel­e­vant in­for­ma­tion was not yet in hand. He com­mit­ted to pro­vid­ing the con­tract de­tails at a lat­er date once avail­able.

When asked whether the $25 mil­lion un­der the rel­e­vant line item was enough to set­tle the full con­trac­tu­al sum, Alexan­der re­spond­ed: “Mem­ber, you know, for 10 years you were there and no ques­tion like this was asked.”

Still, Gon­za­les ex­pressed con­cern that the min­is­ter could not pro­vide the out­stand­ing con­trac­tu­al amount tied to the item. Alexan­der main­tained he want­ed to en­sure the ac­cu­ra­cy of the fig­ure and could not pro­vide it at that time.

Sep­a­rate­ly, ques­tions were raised re­gard­ing funds al­lo­cat­ed for the rental of build­ings. How­ev­er, when asked for a break­down, De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge said he could on­ly re­call “Faris Al-Rawi.”

Last year, the TTPS award­ed a $25 mil­lion con­tract to La Ro­main-based Di­a­mond Sys­tems and Sup­plies Ltd for the pro­cure­ment of 3,000 body-worn cam­eras for po­lice of­fi­cers.