GUARDIAN ME­DIA IN­VES­TI­GA­TION DESK

The Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) are at odds over who re­ceives the mon­ey for wreck­ing ve­hi­cles in the city.

While the cor­po­ra­tion has been pay­ing the wreck­ers for their ser­vices over the past ten months, the $500 fee paid by mo­torists whose cars are im­pound­ed has re­mained with the TTPS.

As a re­sult, mem­bers of the cor­po­ra­tion want to pull the brakes on the cor­po­ra­tion’s wreck­ing pro­gramme.

Yes­ter­day, act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Ju­nior Ben­jamin con­firmed that the is­sue in­volv­ing the col­lec­tion of wreck­ing fees by the TTPS was raised by Port-of-Spain May­or Chin­ua Al­leyne.

Ben­jamin said when the TTPS col­lects the fees it does not go in­to their cof­fers but rather in­to a fund in the trea­sury.

“We col­lect on be­half of the Gov­ern­ment. It does not go to the Po­lice Ser­vice. It goes to the Trea­sury. This is not mon­ey when we col­lect it goes to the po­lice or we could col­lect and it goes to the bor­ough. No! We have di­rect in­struc­tions to col­lect same and to en­sure that it goes to the Min­istry of Fi­nance.”

Ben­jamin ad­mit­ted that Al­leyne had a con­ver­sa­tion with him on the col­lec­tion of fees.

In ad­di­tion to their con­ver­sa­tion, Ben­jamin said Al­leyne al­so wrote to him.

“He sent me a let­ter. And I in­formed him and al­so shared with him that it is a mat­ter that must go to the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance for him to say that X amount of mon­ey should be re­mit­ted to the bor­ough.”

The top cop said Al­leyne sug­gest­ed in their dis­cus­sion that a por­tion of the wreck­ing fees be giv­en to the cor­po­ra­tion.

Ben­jamin added, “It has to be some­thing from the Min­istry of Fi­nance be­cause we can on­ly deal with the law.”

He could not say how much fees the TTPS had col­lect­ed from wreck­ing in the city.

“Hon­est­ly, I can­not. I just re­mem­bered that we had this con­ver­sa­tion.”

Wreck­ing re­sumed in the cap­i­tal city in May last year, and ac­cord­ing to in­ter­nal doc­u­ments from the cor­po­ra­tion at the time, a $300 ser­vice fee per wrecked ve­hi­cle was ini­tial­ly sug­gest­ed to be trans­ferred to the cor­po­ra­tion. Ac­cord­ing to the doc­u­ments, the cor­po­ra­tion was in a state of readi­ness with its two wreck­ers and a hold­ing bay for 35–40 ve­hi­cles at Dock Road, off Wright­son Road, which need­ed to be cleaned.

It al­so stat­ed that the TTPS would pro­vide of­fi­cers for the wreck­ers and hold­ing bay se­cu­ri­ty, sub­ject to avail­abil­i­ty.

In the first four months of op­er­a­tion, the cor­po­ra­tion spent $125,000 with­out re­ceiv­ing any funds from the TTPS.

“The (city po­lice) su­per­in­ten­dent in­di­cat­ed that the TTPS con­tin­ues to re­ceive 100 per cent of the fi­nances, and the cor­po­ra­tion is not ben­e­fit­ing from this ini­tia­tive,” for­mer CEO of the cor­po­ra­tion, Vic­to­ria Al­lum, in­formed the coun­cil in the memo.

She point­ed out that “to date, the cor­po­ra­tion’s de­posit wreck­ing vote has not re­ceived any rev­enue from the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, and all costs as­so­ci­at­ed with the wreck­ing ser­vice are borne by the cor­po­ra­tion.”

“As a re­sult, for the con­tin­ued im­ple­men­ta­tion of the wreck­ing pro­gramme, the afore­men­tioned must be con­sid­ered, and it may not be re­al­is­tic to con­tin­ue with the pro­gramme when it is al­ready in a deficit.”

In the memo, Al­lum stat­ed that the pro­jec­tion for the wreck­ing pro­gramme for fis­cal 2024/2025 would be in a deficit of $547,800, which may not be fea­si­ble if fund­ing is utilised from the cor­po­ra­tion’s short-term em­ploy­ment vote.

As the cor­po­ra­tion’s chief ac­count­ing of­fi­cer, Al­lum stat­ed that the lo­gis­tics as­so­ci­at­ed with the con­tin­ued im­ple­men­ta­tion of the wreck­ing pro­gramme—main­ly the fees to be charged, pay­ments of salaries to wreck­er dri­vers, main­te­nance of its ve­hi­cles, and the cost of hous­ing the ve­hi­cles on the com­pound—must be fi­nalised.

She al­so sug­gest­ed that le­gal ad­vice should be sought re­gard­ing the terms of con­tracts for the wreck­er dri­vers/lor­ry op­er­a­tors when the wreck­ers are non-func­tion­al.

Al­lum stat­ed that while “ap­proval was grant­ed from the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice to com­mence wreck­ing and a Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing was draft­ed, it was not en­dorsed by both par­ties.”

As of Sep­tem­ber 24, 2024, the cor­po­ra­tion had spent $125,064.51 on wreck­ing.

May­or Trou­bled

Months lat­er, in Sep­tem­ber last year, Al­lum stat­ed that the two wreck­ers were non-func­tion­al, and salary pay­ments were made to the wreck­er dri­vers up to the end of their con­tract on Sep­tem­ber 24, 2024.

One wreck­er was re­paired on Oc­to­ber 17, 2024.

How­ev­er, the wreck­er dri­vers re­fused to sign the “as­sump­tion of du­ty forms” from the date spec­i­fied, and wreck­ing op­er­a­tions had to cease.

In an ex­tract from the re­port of the cor­po­ra­tion’s per­son­nel com­mit­tee meet­ing, dat­ed No­vem­ber 6, 2024, con­cerns were raised re­gard­ing the con­tracts of the wreck­er dri­vers, which had not been ex­tend­ed.

The dri­vers were sched­uled to re­sume work on Sep­tem­ber 25, 2024.

A rec­om­men­da­tion was al­so made for the re­mu­ner­a­tion pack­age of the wreck­er dri­vers/lor­ry op­er­a­tors to be in­creased from $7,000 a month.

The coun­cil was al­so ad­vised to re­place two of the four wreck­er dri­vers/lor­ry op­er­a­tors based on lack of ex­pe­ri­ence and ex­per­tise and re­cruit four ad­di­tion­al wreck­er dri­vers/lor­ry op­er­a­tors, sub­ject to the re­pairs of the sec­ond wreck­er.

The coun­cil agreed that six wreck­er dri­vers/lor­ry op­er­a­tors should be re­cruit­ed on con­tract at a month­ly salary of $8,000 and a $500 du­ty al­lowance from June 25, 2024 to Sep­tem­ber 24, 2024. A de­ci­sion was tak­en to en­gage the wreck­er dri­vers from Oc­to­ber 1, 2024 to Jan­u­ary 31, 2025.

An­oth­er ex­tract from the Fi­nance, Plan­ning and Al­lo­ca­tion of Re­sources Com­mit­tee, held on Feb­ru­ary 12, 2025, showed that the coun­cil agreed to hire four wreck­er dri­vers/lor­ry op­er­a­tors on con­tract from March 25, 2025 to June 24, 2025, for three months at a re­mu­ner­a­tion of $8,500 each.

A source at the cor­po­ra­tion said the Port-of-Spain may­or wrote to Al­lum on No­vem­ber 6, last year, stat­ing he was in­formed that the de­ci­sion of the coun­cil to ex­tend the con­tract of the dri­vers from Sep­tem­ber 25, 2024, had not been im­ple­ment­ed by its ad­min­is­tra­tion be­cause the wreck­ers were sent for ser­vic­ing.

The fail­ure to re­new the con­tracts caused the wreck­ing ser­vice to cease, which Al­leyne stat­ed un­der­mined the cor­po­ra­tion’s ef­fort to se­cure the city.

The dri­vers were al­so in­formed in a meet­ing on Sep­tem­ber 30, 2024, that no con­tract would be is­sued while the wreck­ers were be­ing ser­viced.

Al­leyne said in­quiries to de­ter­mine who in­struct­ed the con­tracts not to be re­newed were un­clear and un­der­mined the coun­cil’s de­ci­sion, not­ing that this de­vel­op­ment was “trou­bling.”

Al­lum was asked for clar­i­ty on the mat­ter.

In Jan­u­ary, Al­lum was trans­ferred from the Port-of-Spain Cor­po­ra­tion to the Point Fortin Cor­po­ra­tion.

Al­leyne did not re­spond to five What­sApp mes­sages sent by the Sun­day Guardian be­tween Feb­ru­ary 28 and March 6 re­gard­ing the TTPS re­ceiv­ing 100 per cent of the fi­nances and the cor­po­ra­tion not ben­e­fit­ing from the ini­tia­tive.

Al­lum al­so did not re­ply to a What­sApp mes­sage.

The TTPS’s cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tion de­part­ment did not re­spond to an email sent on Wednes­day, query­ing whether the TTPS had to re­mit the re­lease fees to the cor­po­ra­tion or if the cor­po­ra­tion had to put in a re­quest for the mon­ey.

Wreck­ing Back­ground

Wreck­ing was in­tro­duced in the city in 2011 by then-Port-of-Spain may­or Louis Lee Sing, who called on mo­torists to ad­here to traf­fic reg­u­la­tions or pay a $1,300 fine to get back their ve­hi­cles towed by the cor­po­ra­tion’s hired wreck­ers.

How­ev­er, then-At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan is­sued a cease-and-de­sist let­ter to Lee Sing to stop charg­ing mo­torists the hefty fine, stat­ing his ac­tions were il­le­gal.

Le­gal ex­perts stat­ed that ex­ten­sive re­search had been un­able to dis­cov­er any law that gave the cor­po­ra­tion the pow­er to charge such a fee.

Lee Sing wrote to the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion (IC) seek­ing pro­tec­tion from the “mis­chief” and “law­less­ness” cre­at­ed by Ram­lo­gan.

How­ev­er, the IC re­ject­ed Lee Sing’s com­plaint.

In 2012, the Trinidad Guardian re­port­ed that the cor­po­ra­tion had earned ap­prox­i­mate­ly $800,000 month­ly from wreck­ing ve­hi­cles in the city. The rev­enue from wreck­ing in a sin­gle day was es­ti­mat­ed at $85,000. On week­ends, the cor­po­ra­tion net­ted close to $200,000.

The fig­ure was pro­vid­ed by then-Wood­brook coun­cil­lor Cleve­land Gar­cia dur­ing a con­sul­ta­tion on the Port-of-Spain ex­per­i­men­tal traf­fic scheme.

Lee Sing used the rev­enue earned from the city’s tow­ing to train cor­po­ra­tion work­ers and ini­ti­at­ed long-ser­vice award pro­grammes for its staff.

In 2015, un­der then-may­or Ray­mond Tim Kee, the cor­po­ra­tion pur­chased two wreck­ers cost­ing $1.3 mil­lion to as­sist home­own­ers af­fect­ed by il­le­gal park­ing. The fine was re­duced to $500.

In 2019, a mo­tion was passed by the Port-of-Spain coun­cil to re­duce wreck­ing by 50 per cent af­ter then-may­or Joel Mar­tinez said the sys­tem in place strayed from the orig­i­nal in­tent of wreck­ing in the city.

The pro­gramme was halt­ed when the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic struck in 2020.

When Al­leyne re­placed Mar­tinez as may­or in Au­gust 2023, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley told mem­bers of the new­ly elect­ed coun­cil that if they did not achieve park­ing me­ters by the end of their term, he would con­sid­er them as hav­ing failed.

Dur­ing a press con­fer­ence on Wednes­day, Gold Com­man­der for Car­ni­val 2025, ACP Crime Richard Smith, said the TTPS had wrecked 280 ve­hi­cles in Port-of-Spain on Car­ni­val Mon­day and Tues­day.

The TTPS would have gen­er­at­ed $140,000 in rev­enue over those two days of cel­e­bra­tions.