An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Chair­man of the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion Dr Wen­dell Wal­lace says it is the pre­rog­a­tive of the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice to as­sign and re­as­sign se­nior of­fi­cers as he sees fit.

The de­ci­sion by Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro to move Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, Ju­nior Ben­jamin, from Op­er­a­tions to Ad­min­is­tra­tion, DCP Suzette Mar­tin from In­ves­ti­ga­tions and In­tel­li­gence to Op­er­a­tions, and DCP Natasha George from Ad­min­is­tra­tion to In­ves­ti­ga­tions and In­tel­li­gence has al­so been wel­comed by rank-and-file po­lice of­fi­cers.

How­ev­er, the changes will not take ef­fect un­til lat­er this month.

Al­though the trans­fer let­ters in­form­ing the three DCPs of their port­fo­lio re­as­sign­ments were dat­ed Sep­tem­ber 12 and on­ly hand­ed to them on Sep­tem­ber 15, the new des­ig­na­tions will not take ef­fect un­til Sep­tem­ber 26.

The 14-day no­tice is in keep­ing with the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) No­tice of Trans­fer Reg­u­la­tions—and will mark 100 days since the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gue­var­ro as­sumed of­fice on June 18.

As such, DCP Ben­jamin will con­tin­ue as head of Op­er­a­tions, while DCP Mar­tin will re­main as head of In­tel­li­gence and In­ves­ti­ga­tions (I&I), with DCP George as head of Ad­min­is­tra­tion, for the time be­ing.

An­oth­er sur­pris­ing move that left ju­nior and se­nior of­fi­cers reel­ing in shock on Mon­day was con­fir­ma­tion that As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (ACP), Cen­tral and South­ern Di­vi­sions, Wayne Mys­tar had been di­rect­ed to pro­ceed on 16 months of ac­crued va­ca­tion leave.

This, as leave has been re­strict­ed for all of­fi­cers, as a State of Emer­gency (SoE) re­mains in ef­fect for T&T.

While one crim­i­nol­o­gist de­clined to speak about what could have led to the ad­min­is­tra­tive changes and how it could im­pact the morale of of­fi­cers at this time, the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PolSC) said it was to­tal­ly up to Gue­var­ro to as­sign or re­as­sign per­son­nel.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, chair­man of the PolSC, Wal­lace said, “The Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice is the head of the TTPS and can as­sign/re­as­sign his con­stituents as he sees fit in a man­ner that would ben­e­fit the or­gan­i­sa­tion and by ex­ten­sion, Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Mean­while, of­fi­cers of var­i­ous ranks post­ed sup­port­ive mes­sages in one of the What­sApp groups to which they be­longed, as they wel­comed the changes.

One wrote, “Every­body is hap­py DCP Ben­jamin has been moved to ad­min!!!”

An­oth­er de­clared, “Po­lice of­fi­cers are hap­py to­day! That move was ex­cel­lent. Hats off to the Big Man!”

A fe­male of­fi­cer, who spoke on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty, said, “Don’t get it wrong, DCP Mar­tin is high­ly re­spect­ed, but the change is need­ed. We not cut up with any­one be­ing sent on leave, as a lot of non­sense was go­ing on, and thank­ful­ly those at the top are lis­ten­ing and it can be rec­ti­fied now. The TTPS is not vex ... men are re­joic­ing.”

Hints of un­der­ly­ing ten­sions and a pos­si­ble rift with­in the hi­er­ar­chy of the TTPS ex­ec­u­tive were made pub­lic by Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der on Sep­tem­ber 8, as he ad­dressed a pass­ing out pa­rade at the Po­lice Acad­e­my, St James.

His warn­ings sent eye­brows soar­ing as he strong­ly ad­vised se­nior of­fi­cers to set aside their dif­fer­ences and work with Gue­var­ro—or get out if they felt they could no longer do the job.

He told them, “There is no ap­pli­ca­tion for Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, so there is no rea­son to feel hurt that you did not get through with the job.”

CoP breaks si­lence

Yes­ter­day, Com­mis­sion­er Gue­var­ro is­sued two voice notes where he dis­missed ru­mours of a frac­ture in the TTPS which led to the re­as­sign­ment of se­nior of­fi­cers.

He said the re­as­sign­ments were part of a strate­gic plan to im­prove the TTPS. Re­spond­ing to me­dia re­ports on the sur­prise shake-up which was re­vealed on Mon­day, Gue­var­ro said it was al­ways his in­ten­tion to re­as­sign per­son­nel.

“The re­as­sign­ment of DCPs Ju­nior Ben­jamin, Natasha George and Suzette Mar­tin was planned to co­in­cide with two key mile­stones.”

He said these were the com­ple­tion of each of­fi­cer’s one year in their re­spec­tive roles and his first 100 days which is ap­proach­ing.

He said, “It re­flects a struc­tured ap­proach to ex­ec­u­tive de­vel­op­ment.”

The com­mis­sion­er al­so ad­dressed Mys­tar’s va­ca­tion leave, say­ing while the leave for ju­nior of­fi­cers has been re­strict­ed due to the State of Emer­gency, se­nior of­fi­cers have been al­lowed to go on va­ca­tion.

He said this does not im­pact op­er­a­tions.