ELIZ­A­BETH GON­ZA­LES

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Chair­man of the To­ba­go Di­vi­sion of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce, Cur­tis Williams, hopes the sus­pen­sion and in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher doesn’t un­der­mine the se­cu­ri­ty plans dis­cussed for To­ba­go.

Fol­low­ing a meet­ing to dis­cuss crime on the is­land with Hare­wood-Christo­pher in 2024, Williams of­fered re­sources to the TTPS to fix po­lice ve­hi­cles as part of its con­tri­bu­tion to­wards strength­en­ing pub­lic and busi­ness sec­tor con­fi­dence.

Promis­es for in­creased po­lice pres­ence and oth­er mea­sures to pro­tect To­ba­go’s vul­ner­a­ble busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty from crim­i­nals were al­so made.

But speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Williams raised con­cerns that the Com­mis­sion­er’s ar­rest could dam­age pub­lic trust in the po­lice and called for trans­paren­cy in the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to Hare­wood-Christo­pher.

“It’s im­por­tant for us, the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, to have trust and faith in the sys­tem,” he said. “We need as­sur­ance that we have a pro­fes­sion­al in­sti­tu­tion do­ing the busi­ness of the coun­try be­cause right now, we don’t have that.”

Williams ques­tioned why prop­er dis­ci­pli­nary pro­ce­dures were not fol­lowed be­fore ac­tion was tak­en against the Com­mis­sion­er.

“The Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion ap­points the com­mis­sion­er and deputies. They should be the ones han­dling dis­ci­pline, whether it’s ad­min­is­tra­tive leave or an in­ves­ti­ga­tion,” he said. “If a CEO vi­o­lates pol­i­cy, the Board puts them on leave and ap­points some­one to act. But in this case, it hap­pened af­ter the fact, which is a big con­cern.”

He said the han­dling of the mat­ter rais­es ques­tions about gov­er­nance and prop­er pro­ce­dures, es­pe­cial­ly in such a high-lev­el po­si­tion.

Williams al­so raised con­cern about the im­pact of the sit­u­a­tion on To­ba­go’s busi­ness sec­tor, par­tic­u­lar­ly giv­en on­go­ing ef­forts to en­hance se­cu­ri­ty on the is­land.

“We have been work­ing close­ly with the po­lice to strength­en se­cu­ri­ty ef­forts in To­ba­go. This sit­u­a­tion could shake pub­lic con­fi­dence if not han­dled prop­er­ly,” he said. “The TTPS must pri­ori­tise pro­fes­sion­al­ism and trans­paren­cy so that cit­i­zens and busi­ness­es don’t feel un­cer­tain about law en­force­ment.”

De­spite the or­deal, Williams said he sup­ports DCP Ju­nior Ben­jamin’s ap­point­ment as act­ing Com­mis­sion­er.

“We have no prob­lem with Mr Ben­jamin act­ing. He was next in line on the mer­it list and has worked with us be­fore,” he said. “We were hap­py with his per­for­mance as an ACP in To­ba­go, and now as act­ing Com­mis­sion­er, we ex­pect him to bring trans­paren­cy and pro­fes­sion­al­ism.”

Williams said the sit­u­a­tion should not de­rail To­ba­go’s crime-fight­ing plans and called on the Po­lice Ser­vice to re­main fo­cused.

“We hope that with the act­ing Com­mis­sion­er in place, op­er­a­tions con­tin­ue smooth­ly and that trans­paren­cy is pri­ori­tised go­ing for­ward,” he said.