For­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith is crit­i­cis­ing Gov­ern­ment plans to in­crease the strength of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice from 7,884 of­fi­cers to 10,200 of­fi­cers over five years, ar­gu­ing that the coun­try needs im­proved polic­ing sys­tems and ac­count­abil­i­ty rather than more per­son­nel.

The pro­posed ex­pan­sion was an­nounced yes­ter­day by Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der dur­ing a state­ment in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, where he said the phased re­cruit­ment pro­gramme would sig­nif­i­cant­ly im­prove the op­er­a­tional ef­fec­tive­ness of the TTPS.

Re­spond­ing in a state­ment post­ed on so­cial me­dia, Grif­fith de­scribed the pro­pos­al as “not a se­ri­ous crime-fight­ing strat­e­gy” and ar­gued that in­creas­ing po­lice num­bers was of­ten used when those in charge could not de­liv­er re­sults.