Gary Griffith: Hinds should take responsibility for rise in false overtime claims

DURING October 11's Standing Finance Committee meeting, National Security Minister Fitzgerald Hinds announced plans to cut the TT Police Service's (TTPS) overtime budget by $18 million for fiscal 2025 while aiming to boost productivity among officers during regular working hours.

Hinds said there are ongoing efforts to reduce the overtime bill, which reached $418 million in 2024, adding that he does not believe the decision will result in a decline in officer morale.

He said there are currently 6,450 TTPS personnel, and his ministry intends to recruit v1,000 new officers by March 2025.

Hinds also addressed questions about building taxes, saying while the police are not subject to property tax on police stations, there are residual taxes owed.

He noted a $2.5 million allocation for improvements to police facilities in 2024, stressing the procurement process is necessary before enhancements can begin, with future focus areas identified for 2025.

Former police commissioner and leader of the National Transformation Alliance Gary Griffith expressed his support for Hinds’ concerns about overtime issues in the service. He said while overtime is often essential in police work, some officers have exploited the system.

"Hinds said in September 2020 at a joint select committee, I took charge of an organisation riddled with problems, the most intractable of which has been the presence of rogue officers across the ranks, and he described the service as troubled and wounded.”

In a media release on October 12, Griffith said during his tenure, the TTPS achieved a 59 per cent public trust rating in 2021, largely due to efforts to eliminate these problematic elements.

He addressed rogue officers who misused police resources, managing a significant number of suspensions and tackling overtime corruption.

"Rogue officers using marked police vehicles to escort criminal elements and control drug blocks, which was addressed by transferring them to other divisions or removing them from operational duties if insufficient evidence existed to arrest them at the time.

"Over 300 officers were on suspension, some for over a decade, costing taxpayers over $50 million per annum while they stayed home doing nothing or worked elsewhere. I was in the process of addressing this by either having them fired or returned to duty and overtime corruption."

He said despite his reducing overtime fraud by over $100 million during his tenure, the issue has resurfaced under current leadership. Griffith stressed some officers continue to make false overtime claims, supported by senior officers, which has negatively affected the service's reputation and operational capabilities.

"It is unfortunate no commissioner, before or after me, took a hands-on approach to this corruption. I discovered just a few hundred officers in specific stations were claiming overtime practically 24 hours a day, 30 days a month, with false claims being signed off by certain senior officers.

"This meant some officers, who should have been earning around $10,000 per month, were instead receiving over $70,000 by falsely claiming overtime."

While he commended Hinds for recognising the ongoing issues, he urged him to take responsibility for the current state of affairs, suggesting that a failure to address the return of rogue officers to their previous positions and the abandonment of disciplinary measures has allowed corruption to flourish again.

"Hinds foolishly believed the lies of these rogue officers, who were desperate to maintain their lavish lifestyle at the expense of taxpayers by doing nothing or associating with criminal elements."