Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley says the TTPS' To­ba­go di­vi­sion must now ben­e­fit from added help from Trinidad.

Row­ley sad one of things he learned dur­ing his meet­ing of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil in which THA Chief Sec­re­tary was present, was that 90% of the TTPS force in To­ba­go is made up of To­bag­o­ni­ans. 

"That might be a good thing be­cause peo­ple are polic­ing home but there are cer­tain out­flows from that which caus­es me and oth­er to be­lieve the polic­ing  ef­fort is not as sharp as it should be; large­ly be­cause of the  gen­er­al max­im that fa­mil­iar­i­ty breeds con­tempt," he said. "We have de­cid­ed in our dis­cus­sion this morn­ing that the To­ba­go polic­ing ef­fort can ben­e­fit from a greater ef­fort of in­ter­min­gling of the ser­vices."

He added the To­ba­go of­fi­cers, par­tic­u­lar­ly the young ones, will ben­e­fit from the ex­po­sure and train­ing "with of­fi­cers who are not domi­ciled in To­ba­go." 

"That will im­prove their de­vel­op­ment, im­prove their skills lev­el, and al­low them to func­tion more ef­fec­tive­ly," Dr Row­ley said. 

The Prime Min­is­ter said as a To­bag­on­ian, he is not hap­py with the state of crime on the is­land. He said the coun­try has failed in the pre­ven­tion of crime on the is­land. 

Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Er­la Hare­wood Christo­pher told the me­dia brief­ing the were of­fi­cers from the In­ter Agency Task Force and the Guard and Emer­gency Branch were al­ready on the is­land with more to be de­ployed.