The de­ba­cle sur­round­ing Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher’s trun­cat­ed tenure as com­mis­sion­er of po­lice has not on­ly cre­at­ed rip­ples through­out the coun­try but the now the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty says on a larg­er scale, the in­ter­nal wran­glings with­in the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice, can af­fect in­vestor con­fi­dence.

Ar­rest­ed in her of­fice on Jan­u­ary 30, Hare­wood-Christo­pher was sus­pend­ed for 101 days, as the po­lice in­ves­ti­gat­ed the pro­cure­ment of two high-pow­ered ri­fles. With her sus­pen­sion lift­ed on Mon­day, Hare­wood-Christo­pher per­haps suf­fered se­ri­ous rep­u­ta­tion­al con­se­quences and now, busi­ness­es say this may have a far-reach­ing im­pact.

The Busi­ness Guardian reached out to sev­er­al key stake­hold­ers such as busi­ness cham­bers with Ra­mon Gre­go­rio, pres­i­dent of the Greater Tu­na­puna Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce (GT­CIC) say­ing the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the sus­pen­sion have left a bit­ter taste in the busi­ness fra­ter­ni­ty.

“Con­tro­ver­sies sur­round­ing the sus­pen­sion and re­in­state­ment of a po­lice com­mis­sion­er can af­fect in­vestor sen­ti­ment par­tic­u­lar­ly if they sug­gest sys­temic is­sues as when there is in­sta­bil­i­ty or con­tro­ver­sy at the top of a coun­try’s law en­force­ment. It of­ten sends trou­bling sig­nals to both lo­cal and for­eign in­vestors,” he said.

Gre­go­rio out­lined that key con­cerns in­clude:

1. Gov­er­nance and ac­count­abil­i­ty: If the lead­er­ship of the po­lice ser­vice ap­pears em­broiled in in­ter­nal con­flict or lacks trans­paren­cy, it sug­gests pos­si­ble weak­ness­es in broad­er gov­er­nance struc­tures;

2. Rule of law: In­vestors want as­sur­ance that laws are ap­plied fair­ly and con­sis­tent­ly. Any per­cep­tion that the po­lice ser­vice is po­lit­i­cal­ly in­flu­enced, mis­man­aged, or dys­func­tion­al can erode that con­fi­dence;

3. Se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns: High crime rates or per­ceived in­abil­i­ty of the po­lice to main­tain or­der di­rect­ly af­fect in­vest­ment de­ci­sions, es­pe­cial­ly in sec­tors like tourism or re­tail

Gre­go­rio said it led to the ques­tion, “Can the po­lice gov­ern if it can­not gov­ern it­self?”

“This is a cru­cial point. If the Po­lice Ser­vice is seen as in­ter­nal­ly un­sta­ble, fac­ing lead­er­ship crises or lack­ing pub­lic trust then its au­thor­i­ty is un­der­mined, mak­ing crime-fight­ing ef­forts less ef­fec­tive. As such, there will be a strug­gle to en­force laws im­par­tial­ly or main­tain cred­i­bil­i­ty among cit­i­zens and oth­er arms of gov­ern­ment,” he said.

Gre­go­rio added that a dys­func­tion­al po­lice lead­er­ship struc­ture al­so lim­its co­or­di­na­tion with oth­er na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies, which is es­sen­tial for ad­dress­ing or­gan­ised crime, cor­rup­tion and bor­der con­trol.

All of which, he said, can af­fect na­tion­al and eco­nom­ic se­cu­ri­ty, adding that the min­is­ters of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty and De­fence would need to set­tle these mat­ters be­fore the next full time COP is ap­point­ed as safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty are foun­da­tion­al for eco­nom­ic growth and for busi­ness­es the Po­lice Ser­vice must ad­dress the fol­low­ing:

• ↓Trans­par­ent com­mu­ni­ca­tion about what led to the sus­pen­sion and re­in­state­ment;

• ↓Clear steps to ad­dress in­ter­nal dys­func­tion and re­store pro­fes­sion­al­ism; and

• ↓Ac­count­abil­i­ty mech­a­nisms that re­as­sure the pub­lic and in­vestors alike.

Gre­go­rio not­ed that while the re­in­state­ment of Hare­wood-Christo­pher may mark the end of a par­tic­u­lar episode, the per­cep­tion of in­sta­bil­i­ty or politi­ci­sa­tion in law en­force­ment is dam­ag­ing in the long term.

“What’s need­ed now is a strong, apo­lit­i­cal com­mit­ment to restor­ing trust, in­ter­nal­ly with­in the ser­vice, and ex­ter­nal­ly among cit­i­zens and the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty,” he em­pha­sised.

Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce pres­i­dent Bal­dath Ma­haraj said while ad­min­is­tra­tive process­es gov­ern­ing such de­ci­sions must be re­spect­ed, it is crit­i­cal to recog­nise the wider im­pli­ca­tions for na­tion­al con­fi­dence, par­tic­u­lar­ly among busi­ness own­ers, in­vestors, and cit­i­zens.

He agreed the con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ing the lead­er­ship of the Po­lice Ser­vice has cast a shad­ow of un­cer­tain­ty over one of the most es­sen­tial in­sti­tu­tions re­spon­si­ble for law en­force­ment and na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, adding that the CCIC has “con­sis­tent­ly em­pha­sised” that in­vestor and busi­ness con­fi­dence is deeply tied to per­cep­tions of sta­bil­i­ty, ac­count­abil­i­ty, and ef­fec­tive­ness with­in key state in­sti­tu­tions.

“When the lead­er­ship of the po­lice ser­vice ap­pears un­sta­ble or em­broiled in con­tro­ver­sy, it nat­u­ral­ly rais­es con­cerns among in­vestors, both lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al, about the safe­ty of their op­er­a­tions, the in­tegri­ty of law en­force­ment, and the broad­er cli­mate in which they are ex­pect­ed to do busi­ness.

“If the body tasked with up­hold­ing the law is per­ceived as un­able to man­age its own in­ter­nal af­fairs with trans­paren­cy and pro­fes­sion­al­ism, it be­comes in­creas­ing­ly dif­fi­cult to con­vince the pri­vate sec­tor and the wider pop­u­la­tion that pub­lic safe­ty can be ef­fec­tive­ly as­sured. This has re­al con­se­quences for com­merce, par­tic­u­lar­ly in high-risk sec­tors and vul­ner­a­ble com­mu­ni­ties al­ready strug­gling with crime and in­se­cu­ri­ty,” Ma­haraj ex­plained.

Pres­i­dent of the Fyz­abad Cham­ber of Com­merce (FCC) An­janie Jairam how­ev­er, said these de­vel­op­ments may have mixed im­pli­ca­tions for busi­ness and in­vestor con­fi­dence.

“Her (Hare­wood-Christo­pher) re­turn could sig­nal sta­bil­i­ty and con­ti­nu­ity with­in the TTPS which can im­pact pos­i­tive­ly in the so­ci­ety, es­pe­cial­ly the econ­o­my as in­vestors of­ten seek pre­dictabil­i­ty and op­er­a­tions can re­sume quick­ly and smooth­ly.

“Based on the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing her sus­pen­sion, if this is per­ceived as po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed or in­dica­tive of deep­er is­sues with­in the TTPS, it could trig­ger scep­ti­cism among in­vestors. As we are aware, in­vestors look for se­cu­ri­ty and sta­bil­i­ty,” she said.

How­ev­er, Jairam ex­pressed con­fi­dence in the new­ly in­stalled Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty, Roger Alexan­der, stat­ing that he would work to­wards any un­re­solved is­sues that can de­ter po­ten­tial in­vestors.

Mean­while, Di­anne Joseph pres­i­dent of the T&T Coali­tion of Ser­vices In­dus­tries (TTC­SI) al­so echoed that the mat­ter raised a num­ber of what con­cerns, fears and the prob­a­bil­i­ty of a loss of in­vestor con­fi­dence in the coun­try.

“Giv­en the high pro­file as­so­ci­at­ed with the of­fice of com­mis­sion­er of po­lice, a sit­u­a­tion such as this was not like­ly to go un­no­ticed or with­out the lev­el of at­ten­tion, un­ease and sus­pi­cion that it ap­peared to have caused for the past five months.

“While our court has now ruled that her sus­pen­sion was not un­law­ful nor a breach of nat­ur­al judge­ment, it is very dif­fi­cult to re­move the high lev­el of neg­a­tiv­i­ty that this ac­tion has caused to the lead­er­ship of the po­lice ser­vice, and by ex­ten­sion the coun­try. This may be re­flect­ed in the many so­cial me­dia ad­vi­sories from oth­er ju­ris­dic­tions to vis­i­tors who had planned to come to this coun­try. It begs the ques­tion, there­fore, that apart from vis­i­tors be­ing cau­tioned, was there any loss of in­vest­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties and how will our lead­ers counter that the dam­age that may have oc­curred,” Joseph ex­plained.

She said for the ben­e­fit of the av­er­age cit­i­zen and TTSCI mem­bers, the TTPS must trans­par­ent­ly pro­vide in­for­ma­tion that can sub­stan­ti­ate their po­si­tion to have act­ed in this man­ner.

“Giv­en the turn of events, they may al­so want to share the plans to rem­e­dy the neg­a­tive brand­ing of not on­ly the TTPS, but the coun­try. A loss of pub­lic con­fi­dence in the TTPS may be de­scribed as a loss of con­fi­dence in the se­cu­ri­ty sys­tems in the coun­try and may stretch to sev­er­al oth­er des­ti­na­tions that have a de­sire to do busi­ness with T&T.

“The lead­er­ship of the TTPS may want to seek, via ur­gent in­ter­ven­tion, a re­view of the en­tire process which may serve to guide its dam­age con­trol strate­gies and to put mit­i­gat­ing sys­tems in place to treat with mat­ters of a sim­i­lar na­ture in a man­ner that will not al­low such a de­vel­op­ment to re­cur,” Joseph urged.

She main­tained that quick ac­tion by the par­ties in­volved would serve to bring fi­nal clo­sure to this “un­for­tu­nate de­vel­op­ment” and the need to bring clo­sure can­not be over-em­pha­sised, adding that more­so, there may be po­ten­tial op­por­tu­ni­ties for the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty by ex­ter­nal par­ties, the tourism sec­tor and oth­ers who may re­main in a ‘wait and see’ mode.