Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Sus­pend­ed Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher’s ad­vice to new­ly ap­point­ed act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Ju­nior Ben­jamin is be­ing per­ceived by some as a veiled warn­ing.

On Thurs­day, Guardian Me­dia ex­clu­sive­ly spoke with Hare­wood-Christo­pher who said, “My on­ly ad­vice to him (Ben­jamin) would be to be prin­ci­pled in the dis­charge of his func­tions and to have the courage to act with in­tegri­ty and in ac­cor­dance with his con­vic­tions of what is right and wrong.”

She added, “As a dis­cern­ing Chris­t­ian, he would know that will not al­ways earn him the favour of man, but at least he will have the favour of God ... Which is what re­al­ly mat­ters.”

Yes­ter­day, crim­i­nol­o­gist Dau­rius Figueira said the sus­pend­ed top cop is cau­tion­ing Ben­jamin about the dif­fi­cul­ties he would en­counter as the head of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS).

Figueira said that Hare­wood-Christo­pher’s ref­er­ence to the “favour or man” is in ref­er­ence to po­lit­i­cal forces.

“She is in fact point­ing to po­lit­i­cal di­rec­tions. She is telling him you could ei­ther bend to the will of man or stand firm and walk the way of God, you have a choice, and you sup­posed to know which one to abide by. Specif­i­cal­ly in the post they hold, the will of man is po­lit­i­cal di­rec­tion,” Figueira said.

“Rul­ing politi­cians al­ways seek to in­flu­ence and en­sure that every­body that is with­in their or­bit of pow­er, abides by their pow­er,” Figueira added.

The crim­i­nol­o­gist lament­ed that po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence is built in­to the se­lec­tion process for the TTPS lead­er­ship with the Par­lia­ment giv­en the au­thor­i­ty to ap­prove the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and Deputy Com­mis­sion­ers of Po­lice.

“On 31 Au­gust 1962 we in­her­it­ed a po­lice force that was a crea­ture of colo­nial dom­i­na­tion and in 2025 we are yet to de­colonise the TTPS, so it re­mains heav­i­ly politi­cised. The whole process of join­ing the TTPS and end­ing up in the first di­vi­sion is a lengthy one where you must find po­lit­i­cal favour at one time or an­oth­er to get in­to the first di­vi­sion.”

For­mer com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith be­lieves Hare­wood-Christo­pher is ad­vis­ing Ben­jamin to not be­lieve that suc­cumb­ing to po­lit­i­cal forces will lead to job se­cu­ri­ty.

“There would al­ways be av­enues that some­body may hold of­fice, even as Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, and based on a per­cep­tion that if you do some­thing in this an­gle, it can help sta­bilise and ce­ment your po­si­tion as a Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice. That is what I think Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher is try­ing to in­form Mr Ben­jamin about. Don’t do some­thing to en­sure that you ce­ment your po­si­tion,” Grif­fith posit­ed.

He said he had seen this hap­pen be­fore.

“And we have seen peo­ple af­ter me do that. They con­tin­ue to make de­ci­sions in the hope that it can im­press oth­ers who may be the in­di­vid­u­als that will be the cat­a­lyst to­wards keep­ing your job. Look at my­self. Af­ter I left as com­mis­sion­er of po­lice, the act­ing com­mis­sion­ers of po­lice, in­clu­sive of Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher, they did every sin­gle thing pos­si­ble to dis­man­tle and shut down every sin­gle thing I put in place,” Grif­fith claimed.

Mean­while, Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, who is the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ ap­point­ed shad­ow na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter, said Hare­wood-Christo­pher is echo­ing a sim­i­lar warn­ing he gave to Ben­jamin when his nom­i­na­tion was de­bat­ed in the Low­er House on Wednes­day.

“I have tak­en note of the not-too-veiled ad­vice of the sub­stan­tive Com­mis­sion­er, Hare­wood-Christo­pher, to the act­ing Com­mis­sion­er, Mr Ben­jamin, and I think it is akin to what I said in Par­lia­ment when I asked Mr Ben­jamin to re­sist the temp­ta­tion to do the bid­ding and the dirty work of the PNM gov­ern­ment in pow­er. I think Mrs Hare­wood-Christo­pher is on the same line and length that I spoke of,” he told Guardian Me­dia.