Erla: Police 'grateful' for 2024/2025 budget allocation

POLICE Commissioner Erla Harewood-Christopher says the police service is "grateful" for commitments made to the police service in the 2024/2025 budget.

Finance Minister Colm Imbert presented the budget at the Red House in Port of Spain on September 30. National Security got a total allocation of $6.113 billion. From that, the police got $2.6 billion.

Imbert said when it comes to the police service, some of the money will be used to acquire new body cameras, guns, bulletproof vests, speed guns and cars.

He also said there are plans to deliver 2,000 new cars to the police service over the next three years, with 500 vehicles expected in the first phase.

Harewood-Christopher briefly spoke to the media at the Piarco International Airport during a wreath-laying ceremony for the 48th anniversary of the Cubana Airlines terrorist attack.

Asked for her views on getting new vehicles as opposed to fixing currently damaged ones, she said, "All of the vehicles that can be fixed, will be fixed.

"Some of them are beyond repair...(and) within the government system, you cannot cannibalise vehicles (use parts from one to fix the other). So that is a challenge we have."

But she added, "In terms of the budget, we made requests and got percentages of what we requested. In some instances, we did not get for all but we are grateful for what ever we have and we will be making full use of what we got."

She said the police service still have another chance to lobby for further aid through the mid-year budget review.

"So we look forward to that."

Imbert had also announced plans for the creation of a special police unit to tackle home invasions and crimes on businesses.

And Harewood-Christopher had recently said similar is being worked on for extortion.

On the latter, she said assistant commissioner Richard Smith will "hand-pick who he wants in the unit.

"Because we want to ensure the people we select are capable and they have the capacity in everything else."