KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

Gov­ern­ment yes­ter­day re­ject­ed the nom­i­na­tion of act­ing As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Wen­dell Lu­cas to the po­si­tion of Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (DCP).

Af­ter be­ing praised for his ac­com­plish­ments, long ser­vice and ded­i­ca­tion to the po­lice force by Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds, who moved the mo­tion which of­fered Lu­cas as one of four DCP can­di­dates dur­ing yes­ter­day’s sit­ting of Par­lia­ment, the events that fol­lowed did not go in the of­fi­cer’s favour.

Some 20 Gov­ern­ment MPs vot­ed against Lu­cas, while 12 op­po­si­tion MPs ab­stained from vot­ing.

While the Op­po­si­tion said they had no ob­jec­tions to nom­i­nat­ing Lu­cas, who is the head of the TTPS’ White Col­lar Crime Di­vi­sion, MP Oropouche East Roodal Mooni­lal sought to ques­tion the Po­lice Ser­vice’s Com­mis­sion’s (PolSC) process for nom­i­nat­ing of­fi­cers.

He hint­ed that the Par­lia­ment should be pro­vid­ed with more than just a nom­i­nee’s CV go­ing for­ward.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to Min­is­ter of Hous­ing and Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment and MP for Arou­ca/Mal­oney, Camille Robin­son-Reg­is, the first min­is­ter to vote ‘no’ yes­ter­day, to ques­tion the rea­son for the Gov­ern­ment not vot­ing in favour of Lu­cas. Up to press time, she had not re­spond­ed.

How­ev­er, re­spond­ing to Guardian Me­dia af­ter the vote, Mooni­lal said, “They (Gov­ern­ment) have no rea­son. It’s an in­sult to a pro­fes­sion­al pub­lic of­fi­cer to re­ject with­out stat­ing a rea­son.”

Mean­while, re­spond­ing to Guardian Me­dia via text mes­sage yes­ter­day, Lu­cas said, “I was nom­i­nat­ed num­ber one on the list and I would just like to thank the PolSC for nom­i­nat­ing me.”

The mo­tion re­quired a sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty vote for pas­sage and even with­out Op­po­si­tion in­put, Lu­cas could have been se­lect­ed by Gov­ern­ment.

While Lu­cas was re­ject­ed, both act­ing ACP Ad­min­is­tra­tion Ju­nior Ben­jamin and Supt Natasha George, of the North-East­ern Di­vi­sion, re­ceived a unan­i­mous ‘yes’ from both sides of the House.

The three DCP po­si­tions had been open since 2022.

The three nom­i­na­tions for DCP were laid in Par­lia­ment last De­cem­ber af­ter be­ing for­ward­ed by Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo, who re­ceived the nom­i­na­tions from the PolSC.

The mo­tion to ap­prove the PolSC’s nom­i­na­tion of Curt Si­mon to act in the the of­fice of DCP was al­so filed in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day.

Si­mon, who has pre­vi­ous­ly held the role of act­ing DCP, re­ceived no ob­jec­tions against his nom­i­na­tion from ei­ther side.

On Feb­ru­ary 2, Pres­i­dent Kan­ga­loo for­ward­ed the no­ti­fi­ca­tion for the nom­i­na­tion of an act­ing DCP to the Par­lia­ment.

Ef­forts to con­tact Si­mon were un­suc­cess­ful yes­ter­day.