An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) chair­man Mar­vin Gon­za­les is de­mand­ing an­swers from the Gov­ern­ment over the re­port­ed ab­sence of Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro from Trinidad and To­ba­go, ques­tion­ing whether an act­ing com­mis­sion­er has been ap­point­ed.

Speak­ing to re­porters af­ter the PNM’s Gen­er­al Coun­cil meet­ing at Bal­isi­er House yes­ter­day, Gon­za­les said he had re­ceived in­for­ma­tion that Gue­var­ro had left the ju­ris­dic­tion and that the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion had not ap­point­ed an act­ing com­mis­sion­er.

“I want to ask the Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty, where is the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice? Is the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice in the ju­ris­dic­tion? When did the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice leave the ju­ris­dic­tion? And who was ap­point­ed an act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice if the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice left this ju­ris­dic­tion?”

Gon­za­les said the is­sue raised ques­tions for both the Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der and Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who chairs the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil.

Guardian Me­dia con­firmed from po­lice sources that Com­mis­sion­er Gue­var­ro took a few days of emer­gency leave and is like­ly out of the coun­try.

In Oc­to­ber 2025, par­lia­ment con­vened for DCP Ju­nior Ben­jamin to act in the of­fice of com­mis­sion­er of po­lice, while Gue­var­ro was at­tend­ing the in­ter­na­tion­al as­so­ci­a­tion of chiefs of po­lice an­nu­al con­fer­ence and ex­po­si­tion in Den­ver, Col­orado.

Ques­tion on AI da­ta cen­tre

On an­oth­er mat­ter, Gon­za­les al­so crit­i­cised En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal’s an­nounce­ment that an ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence da­ta cen­tre would be con­struct­ed in Gol­con­da, ques­tion­ing the ap­provals, en­vi­ron­men­tal as­sess­ments, wa­ter sup­ply and con­sul­ta­tions with res­i­dents.

“What ap­provals have the Gov­ern­ment achieved? What pub­lic con­sul­ta­tions have they en­gaged in?” he asked, while ques­tion­ing whether T&T risked be­com­ing “a dump­ing ground” for com­mer­cial ac­tiv­i­ties linked to da­ta cen­tres.

Gon­za­les de­scribed the min­is­ter’s state­ment as ir­re­spon­si­ble and a breach of his oath of of­fice, ar­gu­ing that the Gov­ern­ment must com­ply with the Con­sti­tu­tion and the law.

He warned that the PNM would take a “very tough stance” if Mooni­lal failed to rep­re­sent his con­stituents, say­ing the par­ty would de­fend them.

Queen’s Hall venue re­voked

Mean­while, Gon­za­les al­so dis­closed that the PNM’s ap­proval to hold its an­nu­al con­ven­tion at Queen’s Hall had been re­scind­ed with­out rea­sons be­ing pro­vid­ed. The par­ty had al­so re­ceived and sub­se­quent­ly lost ap­proval for an an­nu­al Car­ni­val fundrais­er at the venue.

He de­scribed the de­vel­op­ments as “pol­i­tics of re­venge, pol­i­tics of ret­ri­bu­tion, pet­ty pol­i­tics at its low­est” and said the par­ty viewed them in the wider con­text of gov­er­nance in T&T.

Gon­za­les said the par­ty had ini­tial­ly re­ceived ap­proval from Queen’s Hall man­age­ment be­fore the de­ci­sion was re­versed. He said the PNM was re­port­ing the mat­ter be­cause of what he de­scribed as the broad­er po­lit­i­cal cli­mate.