KE­JAN HAYNES

Lead Ed­i­tor – News­gath­er­ing

DCP Ju­nior Ben­jamin is now Act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Ju­nior Ben­jamin.

The mo­tion to ap­prove Ben­jamin passed with unan­i­mous ap­proval in the Low­er House a short time ago.

Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley, in pi­lot­ing the mo­tion, lament­ed the po­si­tion the Gov­ern­ment found it­self in, hav­ing to ap­point an act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice for the TTPS giv­en the sus­pen­sion of the sub­stan­tive Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher.

"This is one of these days where the Gov­ern­ment wish­es it didn't have this re­spon­si­bil­i­ty," Row­ley said.

Par­lia­men­tary ap­proval is re­quired to ap­prove act­ing ap­point­ments for the Com­mis­sion­er and Deputy Com­mis­sion­ers of Po­lice.

But Row­ley de­clined to com­ment on the cur­rent im­broglio fea­tur­ing the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PolSC). He was adamant that the Gov­ern­ment's on­ly role is to ap­prove the rec­om­men­da­tions of the PolSC.

Row­ley ex­plained:

"The Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion has seen it fit to take ac­tion, which has re­sult­ed in a va­can­cy aris­ing at the lev­el of Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, and we are called here to fill that va­can­cy by iden­ti­fy­ing the per­son that is iden­ti­fied to act in that po­si­tion."

He stressed that the Gov­ern­ment is "sim­ply dis­charg­ing its re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion to make the ap­point­ment that they want to make."

Row­ley said he did not want to speak in favour or oth­er­wise of Ben­jamin, say­ing he was on­ly stick­ing strict­ly to his re­spon­si­bil­i­ties un­der law to sim­ply ap­prove the rec­om­men­da­tion of the PolSC.

"But I'm say­ing, be­cause the law, the Con­sti­tu­tion, re­quires that the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion holds that au­thor­i­ty to make an ap­point­ment, I have to as­sume to­day that the rec­om­men­da­tion made by the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion is wor­thy of sup­port, and to­day I have no ques­tions to ask the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion. None what­so­ev­er,” he as­sert­ed, “ex­cept that a va­can­cy ex­ists there, and it is to be filled by their rec­om­men­da­tion, and I brought it here as a mes­sen­ger sent by the Con­sti­tu­tion."

In a re­sponse, Op­po­si­tion MP Dr. Roodal Mooni­lal said he would on­ly tell now Act­ing CoP Ben­jamin to con­duct him­self with fair­ness and im­par­tial­i­ty.

"We are com­pelled to tell Mr. Ben­jamin, please con­duct your­self in this of­fice with the ut­most fair­ness, trans­paren­cy, im­par­tial­i­ty, and do not fall prey to do­ing the in­del­i­cate, in­del­i­cate work of su­pe­ri­ors, po­lit­i­cal su­pe­ri­ors."

Hare­wood-Christo­pher was first ques­tioned by of­fi­cers on Thurs­day in re­la­tion to the ac­qui­si­tion of two sniper ri­fles by the SSA. On Fri­day it was an­nounced that she was un­der ar­rest. The TTPS wrote to the PolSC around that time to in­form them Hare­wood-Christo­pher was un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion and DCP Ju­nior Ben­jamin should be el­e­vat­ed to act­ing Com­mis­sion­er.

Hare­wood-Christo­pher was re­leased from cus­tody on Sat­ur­day with­out charge.