The House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives has ap­proved a mo­tion to ap­point As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (ACP) Suzette Mar­tin to the po­si­tion of Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice.

The mo­tion was brought to the House by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and pi­lot­ed by Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Fitzger­ald Hinds last evening.

It was passed with 18 votes for, 14 against, and no ab­sten­tions.

Hinds read de­tails of Mar­tin’s re­sume to the House, point­ing out that she cur­rent­ly leads the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) and had worked with the Homi­cide Bu­reau and the Fraud Squad be­fore mov­ing up the ranks to an in­spec­tor and then an ACP.

She joined the TTPS in 1997 and holds a Mas­ter of Busi­ness Ad­min­is­tra­tion de­gree with mer­it from the An­glia Ruskin Uni­ver­si­ty, as well as a Mas­ter in In­ter­na­tion­al Busi­ness and Law from the same uni­ver­si­ty.

She al­so holds a diplo­ma from the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies in Ap­plied Stud­ies and Project Man­age­ment, to­geth­er with sev­er­al oth­er cer­tifi­cates and qual­i­fi­ca­tions.

Op­po­si­tion Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal told the House that while they were im­pressed with her re­sume, it was con­cerned that she had been a part of the team that trav­elled to Bar­ba­dos to es­cort T&T na­tion­al Brent Thomas back to T&T in Oc­to­ber 2023.

That mat­ter is still be­fore the court.

Mooni­lal al­so raised con­cerns about her in­volve­ment in a mat­ter in­volv­ing firearm user li­cences.

When the mo­tion was put to the vote, all Op­po­si­tion MPs present vot­ed against it and it was ap­proved on the strength of the Gov­ern­ment’s ma­jor­i­ty.