UNC deputy po­lit­i­cal leader Dr Roodal Mooni­lal is telling the Gov­ern­ment not to blame the Op­po­si­tion for not com­ing to Par­lia­ment to ap­prove a Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice.

Yes­ter­day, Mooni­lal said ap­proval of a CoP re­quires a sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty vote in Par­lia­ment, which any gov­ern­ment would have.

“So to sug­gest that (Gov­ern­ment) was scared of com­ing to Par­lia­ment (re­gard­ing a new CoP) be­cause of the Op­po­si­tion is puerile,” Mooni­lal said.

His re­sponse came af­ter Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds on Tues­day ex­plained the de­ci­sion be­hind ex­tend­ing Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher’s tenure as Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er for an­oth­er year. Hinds said the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PolSC) had giv­en her a “good” re­view and that Cab­i­net al­so con­sid­ered that the Op­po­si­tion—which hasn’t sup­port­ed cer­tain bills in Par­lia­ment—would not have sup­port­ed a new nom­i­nee for com­mis­sion­er. He added that the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice and the coun­try would have been left with­out a CoP if Hare­wood-Christo­pher’s con­tract wasn’t ex­tend­ed. Hinds al­so not­ed the PolSC had ad­ver­tised for a po­lice com­mis­sion­er and this process takes some time.

The PolSC was con­tact­ed by Guardian Me­dia re­gard­ing the “good” per­for­mance re­view. There was an ac­knowl­edge­ment of the query but no re­sponse.

Mooni­lal rub­bished Hinds’ rea­son­ing say­ing, “But what was fas­ci­nat­ing is that on Mon­day in the Par­lia­ment, (Cou­va South) MP Rudy In­dars­ingh asked at 2 pm whether Mrs Hare­wood-Christo­pher’s tenure would be ex­tend­ed. The At­tor­ney Gen­er­al said no de­ci­sion was tak­en yet. The Par­lia­ment con­tin­ued to meet and dur­ing the sit­ting the Cab­i­net al­so met and took a de­ci­sion,” he said.

Barataria/San Juan MP Sad­dam Ho­sein al­so weighed in.

“Hinds is play­ing smart with fool­ish­ness, he very well knows that Op­po­si­tion sup­port or not, the Gov­ern­ment has the ma­jor­i­ty for the ap­point­ment of a CoP. In fact, no nom­i­nee was sent to the Par­lia­ment by the Pres­i­dent. It was al­ways the in­ten­tion of the Cab­i­net to ex­tend Hare­wood-Christo­pher’s ser­vice.

“The ex­ten­sion of Mrs Hare­wood-Christo­pher is a de­ci­sion of the Cab­i­net, not the Op­po­si­tion. Hinds and Mrs Hare­wood-Christo­pher are fight­ing for last place in the crime fight. With her ex­tend­ed ap­point­ment and Hinds in charge, we’ll see the crime sit­u­a­tion on­ly wors­en. It’s now sor­rows, sor­rows and prayers for T&T,” Ho­sein said.

In­dars­ingh: Er­la the error

MP Rudy In­dars­ingh said Hare­wood-Christo­pher has been noth­ing short of a cat­a­stro­phe. He said the de­ci­sion was a slap in the face of cit­i­zens.

“And a clear in­di­ca­tion of the PNM’s in­ter­est in pro­tect­ing crim­i­nals at the cost of in­no­cent lives. She’s sim­ply one of the worst com­mis­sion­ers of po­lice ever in the world and her per­for­mance is noth­ing but un­der­whelm­ing.

“It’s no sur­prise that the ed­i­to­ri­als in three dai­ly news­pa­pers have con­demned and ques­tioned Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion. Un­der ‘Er­la the Er­ror’, crime has wors­ened to depths un­prece­dent­ed, in­no­cent lives be­ing lost and cit­i­zens liv­ing in anx­i­ety. She’s been cat­a­stroph­ic for busi­ness and labour,” In­dars­ingh said.

List­ing the num­ber of mur­ders, he added, “Even the in­tel­lec­tu­al­ly vac­u­ous and po­lit­i­cal­ly mor­bid Min­is­ter Hinds ac­knowl­edged re­cent­ly that crime from Trinidad had been spilling in­to To­ba­go like nev­er, be­fore.

“It’s clear, she hasn’t been pro­tect­ing the peo­ple. The ques­tion is, who has she re­al­ly been pro­tect­ing? If ‘Cat­a­stro­phe Christo­pher’ hasn’t been able to se­cure T&T, what’s the re­al rea­son for her ex­ten­sion? If crime has wors­ened, what cri­te­ria is the PNM Gov­ern­ment us­ing to de­ter­mine her reap­point­ment? Cit­i­zens are trau­ma­tised not just be­cause of crim­i­nals, but be­cause of Er­la’s prayers, which seem to not have reached the ears of whomev­er she was pray­ing to,” the Cou­va South MP added.