Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Min­is­ter of De­fence Wayne Sturge says that the Com­mand­ing Of­fi­cer of the Reg­i­ment was sent on im­me­di­ate leave on Au­gust 7, this year, and the de­ci­sion was re­scind­ed soon af­ter due to non-com­pli­ance with Reg­i­men­tal Stand­ing Or­der Num­ber 11.

Sturge con­firmed the de­vel­op­ment in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day as he re­spond­ed to a ques­tion from the Op­po­si­tion bench.

Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les had called on Sturge to ex­plain why the Com­mand­ing Of­fi­cer was sent on leave in Au­gust and the move re­scind­ed soon af­ter (on Au­gust 10). Sturge said, “The rea­son was non-com­pli­ance with Reg­i­men­tal Stand­ing Or­der Num­ber 11.”

Sturge gave no de­tails, and Gon­za­les asked no fur­ther queries.

How­ev­er, checks by Guardian Me­dia with Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry of­fi­cials found that Stand­ing Or­der Num­ber 11 con­cerned leave time and that the of­fi­cer in ques­tion ex­ceed­ed the lim­it of an­nu­al leave (50) days by “very much” more.

Gon­za­les al­so asked Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der the ra­tio­nale for the TTPS re­scind­ing its de­ci­sion to ho­n­our its con­tract to Di­a­mond Sys­tems and Sup­plies Ltd for the pro­cure­ment of 3,000 body cam­eras for of­fi­cers.

Alexan­der, ac­cus­ing the Op­po­si­tion when it was in gov­ern­ment of fail­ing to pro­vide prop­er CCTV cam­eras for cit­i­zens’ pro­tec­tion, added that on every oc­ca­sion he’d an­swer the ques­tion on body-cams in Par­lia­ment and he’d an­swer it “any­where you want to.”

“Be­cause it seems these cam­eras, be­cause of the $25 mil­lion at­tached, seem to be at­tract­ing the at­ten­tion of the per­sons on the Op­po­site side.”

Alexan­der added, “How­ev­er, re­mem­ber where I came from, eh. Re­mem­ber. Where. I. Came. From. Be­cause if the ques­tion con­tin­ues to play, I will tell you whose dad­dy is work­ing where,” he added.

House Speak­er Jagdeo Singh in­ter­vened.

“An­swer the ques­tion, come on, come on. Min­is­ter, an­swer... just pro­ceed to an­swer your ques­tion, please.”

Alexan­der said, “In an ef­fort to en­sure pru­dent use of pub­lic funds, the Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty have (sic) so­licit­ed quo­ta­tions from rep­utable com­pa­nies from In­dia, Chi­na and the US. All sup­pli­ers of­fered sig­nif­i­cant low­er prices than was pre­vi­ous­ly quot­ed.

“In light of this, the pro­cure­ment was can­celled in or­der to save the min­istry and pro­vide of­fi­cers with rel­e­vant bul­let-proof vests and ve­hi­cles where that mon­ey could have af­ford (sic).”

Gon­za­les asked if there was an ex­e­cut­ed con­tract be­tween TTPS and the sup­pli­er on the mat­ter of 3,000 body-cams for the TTPS. Alexan­der said, “I should ex­plain, how­ev­er, that al­though the arrange­ment was made, not one cent was paid to the per­sons.”