Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

Even as they unan­i­mous­ly agreed on the ap­point­ment of act­ing Snr Supt Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro as Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er yes­ter­day, the Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion took turns spar­ring over the se­lec­tion process be­hind a leader for the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice.

Gue­var­ro’s nom­i­na­tion was ap­proved dur­ing a sit­ting of the Low­er House, days af­ter his name was sub­mit­ted to the Pres­i­dent by the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PolSC).

But dur­ing her con­tri­bu­tion to the mo­tion to ap­prove Gue­var­ro’s nom­i­na­tion, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar took jabs at the for­mer PNM gov­ern­ment, as she ac­cused them of be­ing in­ef­fec­tive in se­ri­ous­ly tack­ling crime.

Re­fer­ring to past ef­forts and mil­lions of dol­lars al­lo­cat­ed to fight crime, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said there were lit­tle re­sults seen dur­ing the last gov­ern­ment’s nine years in of­fice.

“It’s very im­por­tant that we un­der­stand that the skills and tech­niques that are to be used to keep us safe and se­cure, it’s not just about mon­ey be­cause the last gov­ern­ment used all of our mon­ey... $66 mil­lion. When the UNC is in gov­ern­ment, when the PNM is in gov­ern­ment, the crime al­ways goes up.”

Diego Mar­tin North-East MP and for­mer Fi­nance min­is­ter Colm Im­bert at­tempt­ed to raise a point of or­der, ob­ject­ing to Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s re­marks but she con­tin­ued speak­ing.

“You had your turn for ten years and you failed!” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

But Im­bert, who chal­lenged Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s as­ser­tions, main­tained that the past gov­ern­ment’s ac­tions were not rel­e­vant to Gue­var­ro’s ap­point­ment.

The Prime Min­is­ter, how­ev­er, con­tin­ued ridi­cul­ing the past gov­ern­ment, say­ing the CoP se­lec­tion process which pro­duced a nom­i­na­tion was the re­sult of “PNM ma­nip­u­la­tion and per­ver­sion.”

In 2022, then-prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley ad­mit­ted that he met with then-PolSC chair Bliss Seep­er­sad at the Pres­i­dent’s House and shared in­for­ma­tion on a re­port on the dis­tri­b­u­tion of Firearm Users’ Li­cens­es (FULs) un­der the watch of then-po­lice com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith.

Row­ley lat­er told re­porters at a me­dia brief­ing that he “lost con­fi­dence” in Grif­fith as com­mis­sion­er.

Re­fer­ring to this meet­ing, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said de­spite their sup­port for Gue­var­ro yes­ter­day, past sit­tings to dis­cuss the ap­point­ment of a po­lice com­mis­sion­er were not as am­i­ca­ble.

“Time af­ter time ... every time a no­ti­fi­ca­tion was brought, Mem­ber is now telling us, ‘Oh we will sup­port it’ and very nice, sweet words, when every time a no­ti­fi­ca­tion came here, they took the top of the list and put it on the bot­tom,” she said.

“The (then) prime min­is­ter ran to Pres­i­dent’s House, grabbed the mer­it list, so pub­lic con­fi­dence re­al­ly has fall­en to an all-time low in the TTPS.”

As the Op­po­si­tion voiced fierce ob­jec­tions to Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s re­marks, House Speak­er Jagdeo Singh tried to tem­per emo­tions while re­mind­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar to stick to the mo­tion at hand.

How­ev­er, dur­ing his con­tri­bu­tion, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie al­so knocked past con­cerns sur­round­ing Row­ley’s meet­ing with the for­mer PolSC chair.

“My friends op­po­site seem to get in­to fits when we point out to them that this process has not been faith­ful­ly ob­served in the past and not by us,” Je­re­mie said.

“The process is rig­or­ous, it in­volves ad­ver­tise­ment, com­pre­hen­sive se­cu­ri­ty and pro­fes­sion­al vet­ting, the es­tab­lish­ment of an or­der of mer­it list, fa­mil­iar to a gen­tle­man who used to be on the oth­er side to take steal, bor­row, what­ev­er ... the list.”

He main­tained that the no­ti­fi­ca­tion pre­sent­ed an im­por­tant link in the pro­ce­dure to ap­point a po­lice com­mis­sion­er, as it en­sured a lay­er of trans­paren­cy and in­de­pen­dence, and con­tin­ued to ac­cuse the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion of flout­ing these safe­guards.

“It is the cul­mi­na­tion of a con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly en­shrined process recog­nised by the courts, one that re­in­forces pub­lic trust, in­sti­tu­tion­al sta­bil­i­ty and the es­sen­tial de-politi­ci­sa­tion of po­lice lead­er­ship, a les­son that my friends on the oth­er side have not learned,” he said.

“They should have learned be­fore, be­cause they were part of these arrange­ments, to keep their grub­by hands off the po­lice ser­vice!”

De­spite the con­tention, both Gov­ern­ment and the Op­po­si­tion suc­cess­ful­ly moved the ap­proval of Gue­var­ro as com­mis­sion­er, as they both agreed that his qual­i­fi­ca­tions and train­ing en­sured he was best suit­ed for the job.

Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Roger Alexan­der said Gue­var­ro, 49, was the hold­er of a Mas­ter’s in Busi­ness Ad­min­is­tra­tion (MBA) and had re­ceived train­ing in in­tel­li­gence-gath­er­ing, un­der­cov­er work and counter-ter­ror­ism in his 27-year-long ca­reer as a po­lice­man.

Gue­var­ro has spent most of his ca­reer as­signed to the Spe­cial Branch, a spe­cialised unit of the TTPS tasked with pro­tect­ing high-rank­ing of­fi­cials—in­clud­ing the pres­i­dent and the prime min­is­ter—and high-pro­file crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

For­mer Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter and Arou­ca/Lopinot MP Mar­vin Gon­za­les al­so praised Gue­var­ro’s qual­i­fi­ca­tions, not­ing that it would be an as­set to lead­ing the TTPS. How­ev­er, he urged him to make the most of his ap­point­ment and re­mem­ber the safe­ty of cit­i­zens as he as­sumes of­fice.