ELIZ­A­BETH GON­ZA­LES

GML Cor­re­spon­dent

The Di­vi­sion of Health, Well­ness and So­cial Pro­tec­tion has con­firmed it has part­ed ways with Hanif Ben­jamin, more than a month af­ter he was charged with two sex­u­al of­fences in­volv­ing a child.

In an up­dat­ed me­dia re­lease this morn­ing, the Di­vi­sion said the mat­ter with Ben­jamin, a for­mer Di­rec­tor of the So­cial Pro­tec­tion De­part­ment in the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly, was ad­dressed swift­ly un­der the over­sight of the Health Sec­re­tary.

The Di­vi­sion has said the ac­tion tak­en re­flects its ze­ro-tol­er­ance pol­i­cy for mis­con­duct and its com­mit­ment to in­tegri­ty and ac­count­abil­i­ty.

This fol­lows mount­ing po­lit­i­cal pres­sure from both the PNM To­ba­go Coun­cil and the In­no­v­a­tive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Al­liance, both of whom had called for Ben­jamin’s im­me­di­ate dis­missal.

Both par­ties had ar­gued that some­one fac­ing crim­i­nal charges should not con­tin­ue to hold a lead­er­ship role in child pro­tec­tion and so­cial ser­vices.

The Di­vi­sion says its top pri­or­i­ty re­mains safe­guard­ing vul­ner­a­ble pop­u­la­tions and tak­ing de­ci­sive ac­tion when al­le­ga­tions arise.

The case against Ben­jamin is still be­fore the court.