An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

The T&T Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion (TTPSS­WA) has thrown its sup­port be­hind Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro, say­ing his de­ci­sions so far have been aimed at im­prov­ing the op­er­a­tions of the ser­vice.

Speak­ing on CNC3’s Morn­ing Brew yes­ter­day, TTPSS­WA pres­i­dent, act­ing ASP Gideon Dick­son, re­ject­ed spec­u­la­tion that the CoP’s lat­est ex­ec­u­tive reshuf­fle was con­tro­ver­sial. He al­so crit­i­cised the me­dia and pub­lic for try­ing to “find a bac­cha­nal” in every move.

Re­fer­ring to the re­as­sign­ment of port­fo­lios for the three Deputy Com­mis­sion­ers of Po­lice (DCPs)—Ju­nior Ben­jamin, Suzette Mar­tin and Natasha George—which takes ef­fect on Sep­tem­ber 26, Dick­son de­scribed it as a rou­tine ad­min­is­tra­tive move.

“We have no no­tion, no in­for­ma­tion to sug­gest any­thing oth­er than what you would call ad­min­is­tra­tive de­ci­sions which are aligned to im­prov­ing the or­gan­i­sa­tion, and al­so en­sur­ing that our of­fi­cers get what they de­serve,” he said.

Un­der the reshuf­fle, Ben­jamin will move from Op­er­a­tions to Ad­min­is­tra­tion; George from Ad­min­is­tra­tion to In­tel­li­gence and In­ves­ti­ga­tions; and Mar­tin from In­tel­li­gence and In­ves­ti­ga­tions to Op­er­a­tions.

De­fend­ing the three DCPs, Dick­son said, “Most of the of­fi­cers at the deputy com­mis­sion­er lev­el have been there over a year, and there is a body of work to show the re­sults they have achieved while sit­ting in such of­fice and un­der the di­rec­tive of the CoP, which is with­in his man­date to man­age the or­gan­i­sa­tion.”

He added that Gue­var­ro be­lieves now is the right time for the reshuf­fle and that his moves since June 18 “have seemed to align with good re­sults.”

“So we, as an as­so­ci­a­tion, al­so hope this will again work in favour of the or­gan­i­sa­tion to get the best re­sults,” Dick­son said.

He cau­tioned it was too ear­ly to spec­u­late oth­er­wise. “He (Gue­var­ro) has come with a trans­for­ma­tion­al mind­set, one that is fo­cused on pre­ci­sion and be­ing ef­fec­tive in the de­liv­ery of ser­vice with the in­ter­nal of­fi­cers and the ex­ter­nal pub­lic we serve.”

When asked whether the same rea­son­ing ap­plied to Gue­var­ro’s de­ci­sion to send As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (ACP) for the Cen­tral and South-West­ern Di­vi­sions Wayne Mys­tar on 16 months’ ac­crued va­ca­tion leave—even as a State of Emer­gency is in ef­fect—Dick­son avoid­ed claims of po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence.

In­di­cat­ing the as­so­ci­a­tion had no such in­for­ma­tion, he stressed, “Our or­gan­i­sa­tion is very re­silient and you would see that our trans­for­ma­tion has been oc­cur­ring over time, es­pe­cial­ly since 2007.”

Dick­son not­ed it was nor­mal for of­fi­cers to ac­cu­mu­late leave and be di­rect­ed to pro­ceed on it, say­ing Mys­tar’s case was no dif­fer­ent. He point­ed out that Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der him­self had been sent on leave dur­ing his po­lice ser­vice tenure.

Alexan­der was di­rect­ed to take 763 days of ac­crued leave by for­mer CoP Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher when he held the rank of se­nior su­per­in­ten­dent. At the time, Hare­wood-Christo­pher ex­plained it was the com­mis­sion­er’s re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to man­age the hu­man re­sources of the TTPS. She not­ed the or­gan­i­sa­tion had faced an un­ten­able sit­u­a­tion of many of­fi­cers work­ing con­tin­u­ous­ly for ex­tend­ed pe­ri­ods while ac­cu­mu­lat­ing ex­ces­sive­ly high va­ca­tion leave en­ti­tle­ments.

Hare­wood-Christo­pher warned that such sit­u­a­tions were detri­men­tal to both of­fi­cers and the or­gan­i­sa­tion, lead­ing to health and wel­fare is­sues, di­min­ished re­turns, and loss of ef­fi­cien­cy and ef­fec­tive­ness. To mit­i­gate the risk and li­a­bil­i­ty of ex­ces­sive leave, the TTPS im­ple­ment­ed a pol­i­cy re­quir­ing of­fi­cers to use por­tions of their leave on a phased, con­trolled ba­sis, while re­main­ing avail­able to be re­called if nec­es­sary.

Dick­son agreed, “The re­al­i­ty of the sit­u­a­tion is that be­cause our leave has be­come re­strict­ed so much over time, you would find of­fi­cers go­ing at a hun­dred, would ac­cu­mu­late leave and it is in the Com­mis­sion­er’s purview to man­age such leave.”

The TTPSS­WA head, who is him­self on two years’ leave, as­sured that al­though of­fi­cers are out of the dai­ly ro­ta­tion, “it does not mean they are dis­con­nect­ed while away from the job.”