sto­ries by Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) will re­ceive a $20 mil­lion al­lo­ca­tion for the 2026 fis­cal year to pro­cure an ad­di­tion­al 3,120 Body Worn Cam­eras (BWC) for front­line of­fi­cers. A fa­cil­i­ty to sup­port na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty op­er­a­tions in the north­ern and east­ern cor­ri­dors is al­so be­ing de­vel­oped at Laven­tille.

These are among the plans in the Gov­ern­ment’s 2026 Pub­lic Sec­tor In­vest­ment Pro­gramme (PSIP). The PSIP was among the doc­u­ments laid by Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dave Tan­coo on Mon­day in Par­lia­ment when he de­liv­ered the 2026 Bud­get. He al­so pre­sent­ed a PSIP for To­ba­go.

The PSIP’s sec­tion on law and or­der stat­ed that in fis­cal 2026, a to­tal of $230.7 mil­lion will be in­vest­ed in Pub­lic Safe­ty and Cit­i­zen Se­cu­ri­ty to strength­en na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies.

The Body Worn Cam­eras pur­chase will be aimed at equip­ping front­line of­fi­cers who are cur­rent­ly with­out this tool. Ac­cord­ing to the PSIP, the equip­ment will fa­cil­i­tate ac­count­abil­i­ty, trans­paren­cy, and op­er­a­tional ef­fec­tive­ness across the ser­vice. Scope of work in­cludes ac­qui­si­tion of BWC—pro­cure­ment of high-qual­i­ty, durable units suit­able for dai­ly field op­er­a­tions.

At the end of Sep­tem­ber, Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der told the Sen­ate that a $24.9 mil­lion con­tract award­ed in 2024 for 3,000 body cam­eras for the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) has been ter­mi­nat­ed in or­der to save mon­ey, and as of June, this year, on­ly 17. 9 per cent of po­lice of­fi­cers used body cams.

But ac­cord­ing to the PSIP, the items will be con­fig­ured to TTPS’s net­work in­fra­struc­ture, in­te­grat­ing BWC sys­tems with ex­ist­ing TTPS dig­i­tal in­fra­struc­ture to en­able se­cure da­ta stor­age, re­trieval, and analy­sis. De­ploy­ment will tar­get front­line of­fi­cers, with dis­tri­b­u­tion and as­sign­ment of BWC units across di­vi­sions, en­sur­ing cov­er­age in high-con­tact and high-risk ar­eas. Com­pre­hen­sive train­ing will be pro­vid­ed to en­sure of­fi­cers are pro­fi­cient in the op­er­a­tion, han­dling, and da­ta man­age­ment pro­to­cols as­so­ci­at­ed with BWC us­age.

The PSIP al­so stat­ed that a fa­cil­i­ty to sup­port na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty op­er­a­tions in the north­ern and east­ern cor­ri­dors is be­ing de­vel­oped at Nos. 151–155 East­ern Main Road, Laven­tille. The fa­cil­i­ty will ac­com­mo­date the Traf­fic and High­way Pa­trol Branch, Guard and Emer­gency Branch, In­ter-Agency Task Force, Trans­port Branch, and Tac­ti­cal Sup­port Units.

The first Mo­bile Com­mand Ve­hi­cle Units will al­so be im­ple­ment­ed in 2026 as mo­bile op­er­a­tional hubs. The $10 mil­lion en­deav­our is de­signed to strength­en field co­or­di­na­tion dur­ing emer­gen­cies and ma­jor pub­lic events, im­prove vis­i­bil­i­ty and ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty of po­lice ser­vices in un­der­served or high-risk ar­eas, and sup­port com­mu­ni­ty polic­ing ini­tia­tives with a flex­i­ble, on-the-ground pres­ence.

Al­so list­ed is a $2 mil­lion plan for the ac­qui­si­tion of six in­dus­tri­al/com­mer­cial-grade map­ping drones for TTPS’s Air Sup­port Unit. The ad­vanced aer­i­al sys­tems will sig­nif­i­cant­ly en­hance the TTPS’s abil­i­ty to con­duct high-res­o­lu­tion map­ping and sur­veil­lance, gath­er re­al-time in­tel­li­gence in com­plex en­vi­ron­ments, sup­port tac­ti­cal op­er­a­tions and crime scene analy­sis, and im­prove sit­u­a­tion­al aware­ness and re­sponse co­or­di­na­tion.

The TTPS will con­tin­ue up­grad­ing its ICT equip­ment and sys­tems, in­clud­ing the ac­qui­si­tion of an in­ves­tiga­tive soft­ware so­lu­tion specif­i­cal­ly de­signed for the An­ti-Cor­rup­tion In­ves­ti­ga­tion Bu­reau. The ser­vice will al­so up­grade and mod­ernise TTPS’s Glob­al Ac­cess Con­trol Sys­tems, en­hanc­ing se­cu­ri­ty at all po­lice build­ings, and up­grade TTPS’s net­work­ing in­fra­struc­ture across var­i­ous fa­cil­i­ties through­out Trinidad and To­ba­go.

The TTPS will re­ceive $6 mil­lion to ex­pand its port­fo­lio of spe­cialised train­ing pro­grammes in key ar­eas, in­clud­ing foren­sic analy­sis, cy­ber­crime in­ves­ti­ga­tion, and poly­graph ex­am­i­na­tion. There is a $39 mil­lion plan for three projects to as­sist re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions in strength­en­ing their mu­nic­i­pal po­lice de­part­ments’ ve­hi­cles, man­pow­er, and equip­ment.

The doc­u­ments al­so list­ed a $39.4 mil­lion in­vest­ment to­wards up­grad­ing prison in­fra­struc­ture, ac­qui­si­tion of ve­hi­cles, and ex­pan­sion of re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion ser­vices to sup­port in­mates’ suc­cess­ful rein­te­gra­tion in­to so­ci­ety.

Ex­pen­di­ture break­down

In the Draft Es­ti­mates of Ex­pen­di­ture doc­u­ment, es­ti­mates for the new Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty and De­fence Min­istries were giv­en as $1,864,011,700 and $1,317,729,070, re­spec­tive­ly

The doc­u­ment list­ed $6,471,817 for pub­lic or­der and safe­ty.

Mil­i­tary De­fence $1,164,355,100

Po­lice and Pro­tec­tion Ser­vices $3,461,944,400

Law Courts $1,085,234,950

Pris­ons ($760,283,500)

Ex­pen­di­ture for TTPS salaries and oth­er costs was $2,612,301,000.

The TTPS De­vel­op­ment Fund—$70,306,000—was al­so list­ed. Over­all, this was more than the 2025 fig­ure of $6,600,000

The grand to­tal for the Draft Es­ti­mates for Re­cur­rent Ex­pen­di­ture for all min­istries and di­vi­sions was $2,056,452,000

Ed­u­ca­tion had the high­est es­ti­mate at $5,080,280,354.