SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

“It would be a priv­i­lege to work with these guys!” This was act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Ju­nior Ben­jamin’s re­sponse to yes­ter­day’s swear­ing-in of Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Roger Alexan­der and Wayne Sturge as Min­is­ter of De­fence at Pres­i­dent’s House.

Both men who are gov­ern­ment MPs were sworn in as part of Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s Cab­i­net yes­ter­day.

In ex­tend­ing con­grat­u­la­tions to Sturge and Alexan­der, Ben­jamin said he worked with Alexan­der, who re­signed from the po­lice ser­vice in March.

Alexan­der served as a se­nior su­per­in­ten­dent in the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice and was last as­signed to the An­ti-Ex­tor­tion Unit.

He fought the Tu­na­puna seat for the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress and de­feat­ed the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s Es­mond Forde in last Mon­day’s Gen­er­al Elec­tion.

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty will be specif­i­cal­ly re­spon­si­ble for se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies in the coun­try.

Ben­jamin said Alexan­der has a wealth of polic­ing ex­pe­ri­ence un­der his belt.

“Of­fi­cer Alexan­der, then and now the min­is­ter, is re­al­ly one of those who have made that quan­tum leap,” Ben­jamin said.

“Just com­ing out of the po­lice ser­vice, I’m cer­tain that he’s go­ing to bring a lot with him in­to this of­fice. So we are look­ing for­ward to that lev­el of col­lab­o­ra­tion, part­ner­ship, and above all, the ex­pe­ri­ence that he brings to en­sure that, you know, we get the nec­es­sary things.”

This, he said, would help with crime re­duc­tion and re­duc­ing pub­lic fear.

Ben­jamin said there are sev­er­al things the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice needs to op­er­ate ef­fec­tive­ly and ef­fi­cient­ly.

Among the tools re­quired, Ben­jamin said, are ve­hi­cles, bul­let­proof vests and the is­sue of body cam­eras.

“We be­lieve that things are go­ing to cer­tain­ly turn around and even get bet­ter as we con­tin­ue. Be­sides, I think we start­ed this year pret­ty well. We want to con­tin­ue as we con­tin­ue to see the re­duc­tion of crime in 2025.”

Pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion ASP Gideon Dick­son al­so con­grat­u­lat­ed Alexan­der on his ap­point­ment.

“Mr Alexan­der is very in­ti­mate with the is­sues af­fect­ing the po­lice ser­vice. Con­se­quent­ly, we look for­ward to en­gag­ing with him and his team as we con­tin­ue to tack­le the is­sues plagu­ing work­ing con­di­tions, equip­ment, train­ing, re­cruit­ment, re­mu­ner­a­tion, ve­hi­cles, and crime strate­gies,” Dick­son said.

Figueira: Good pick

Al­so weigh­ing in on the se­lec­tions of Sturge and Alexan­der is well-known crim­i­nol­o­gist Dau­rius Figueira, who said the pick was a good one.

“The es­tab­lish­ment of the De­fence Min­is­ter is a wise move.”

At her swear­ing-in cer­e­mo­ny on Thurs­day, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar told at­ten­dees at Pres­i­dent House, “Six months from to­day, un­der a new UNC Gov­ern­ment, you will live in a safer and hap­pi­er T&T.”

Even though the Prime Min­is­ter has giv­en that promise, Figueira said if this new Gov­ern­ment fails to un­der­stand what is tak­ing place on the ground, they will not be able to bring some mea­sure of re­lief in the short or long term.

“In­ter­ven­tion is need­ed on the ground lev­el.”

Fail­ure to act, Figueira said, would re­sult in more blood on our streets.

“What they have to do is that they have to know to bring in peo­ple who un­der­stand what’s go­ing on on the ground. For them now to wrap their mind around the re­al­i­ty.”

At this point, he said T&T does not have time.

“What I read and heard on the cam­paign trail is cer­tain­ly no so­lu­tion. Be­cause if they’re not will­ing to un­der­stand what is the re­al­i­ty on the ground, what they pro­posed in their man­i­festo and what they ar­tic­u­lat­ed in the cam­paign is sim­ply pie in the sky, just like what the PNM told us in the cam­paign.”