Alexander: TTPS saddled with $550m ‘black hole’

The Trinidad and Tobago Police Service (TTPS) has found itself in a $550 million “black hole” due to fiscal mismanagement and “scandals” under the former People’s National Movement (PNM) administration. So said Homeland Security Minister Roger Alexander in an interview with the Sunday Express yesterday.The minister said more than half a billion dollars was spent, plus billions more over nearly a decade, yet the TTPS was still left wanting.

The minister also confirmed that a TTPS audit covering 2017-22 found a troubling picture of its past financial and procurement practices, identifying $350 million in confirmed liabilities, questionable multimillion-dollar contracts, unusable equipment, payments made without contracts and what the document describes as a “unified Hockey Field Scandal”.

Another major cause for concern is a $200 million government-guaranteed loan involving the National Insurance Property Development Company Limited (NIPDEC), which, according to the audit, was taken during the same period.“This $200 million-dollar loan, in fact a total of $263 million with interest and another $350 million in liabilities, has placed the TTPS in a financial black hole and at a disadvantage in terms of obtaining technology and resources needed,” Alexander said

....................The past decade: The audit says there are also $449,000 in unpaid invoices, which are now the subject of legal action.

Some principal figures identified in the audit:

Item—Amount cited:

Confirmed TTPS liabilities—More than $300 million

Estimated/“realistic” total liabilities—More than $350 million

Government-guaranteed NIPDEC loan—$200 million

DEMS/GPS/body-camera agreement—More than $100 million

TSTT X-ray vehicles—$47.52 million

Vehicle leases in 2019/2020 allegedly paid without contracts—$22.7 million

Hockey artificial turf and shock pads—€85,213.80 ($766,924.20)

Hockey sprinkler systems and safety nets—$356,375

Hockey-related unpaid invoices subject to legal action—$449,000

TTPS mobile app licensed software fee—US$450,000 annually for three years

Total mobile app license fees over three years—US$1.35 million

Trouble in paradise?

@Narper wrote:

Trouble in paradise?

Big dodo.........no money after 10 years of idiots running T&T.

Now where is the government going to get this amount of money to pay PNM bills ?

Audit flags $200m loan

TTPS ‘under financial pressure’

AN audit of the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service (TTPS) has red-flagged a $200 million loan that is placing financial pressure on the organization. Government officials told the Express that the loan arrangement has raised major questions. The loan arrangement is with NCB Global Bank where $9 million is to be paid in interest annually totaling $63 million and then a “bullet” $200 million payment which is due in 2028.

According to the report, on March 16, 2021, the Ministry of Finance advised Nipdec that NCB Global Finance Ltd had been awarded the mandate on March 9 to arrange and fully underwrite a seven-year, 4.5% fixed-rate loan facility for the TTPS. The approved facility was capped at $200 million—less than half of the TTPS’s more than $500 million in outstanding supplier liabilities at the time.

At the fixed 4.5% interest rate, the $200 million principal generates an estimated annual interest bill of approximately $9 million. Interest payments are due semi-annually, meaning the TTPS is responsible for payments of approximately $4.5 million every six months. Those interest obligations began six months after the initial disbursement. Assuming the entire $200 million remains outstanding throughout the seven-year term, approximately $63 million would be paid in interest.

An administrative agent fee of $6,000 per year also applies.

Note : Great is the PNM

where is the 200 million final payment coming from?

CoP on TTPS financial problems:

$200m loan only the surface

Commissioner of Police Allister Guevarro says the $200 million loan that plunged the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service (TTPS) further into debt is only the “surface” of the financial problems uncovered by an audit of the organization. He disclosed that the audit also showed how an “accounting officer”, who he said did not understand the legal responsibilities of the office he held, allowed contracts to be executed in a manner that exposed the TTPS to more than $100 million being payable to a single company before Guevarro intervened and stopped it.

The Sunday Express exclusively reported Homeland Security Minister Roger Alexander’s confirmation that the TTPS had found itself in a $550 million “black hole” due to fiscal mismanagement and “scandals” under the former People’s National Movement (PNM) administration. The Commissioner recalled that he had been speaking publicly about the audit since last year and has repeatedly urged the media to obtain a copy of the report because, according to him, it is essential reading.

“The now-controversial $200 million loan is only the surface. The audit outlines a staggering catalogue of procurement breaches, contract irregularities and financial mismanagement that collectively pushed the TTPS hundreds of millions of dollars into debt,” he said. “It reveals in black and white what was actually occurring inside the TTPS during what period and that specific period. It is now a textbook illustration of how extreme self-importance, when left unchecked, can evolve into a severe case of Dunning Kruger effect with catastrophic consequences for public funds and public trust.”

The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which people with limited ability, skill or knowledge in a particular area overestimate their own competence.