DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) is in­sist­ing that sus­pend­ed po­lice com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher should have been fired based on her per­for­mance dur­ing her tenure from Feb­ru­ary 2023 un­til her sus­pen­sion on Jan­u­ary 31.

How­ev­er, the par­ty’s main con­cern lies with how the mat­ter sur­round­ing her dis­missal was han­dled.

Guardian Me­dia spoke to the UNC MPs out­side the Red House yes­ter­day, as they made their way in­to par­lia­ment to ap­prove the se­lec­tion of Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Ju­nior Ben­jamin as act­ing CoP and As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Curt Si­mon as act­ing DCP in Ben­jamin’s place.

This de­vel­op­ment came af­ter Hare­wood-Christo­pher’s at­tor­ney failed to se­cure an in­junc­tion to block Ben­jamin’s ap­point­ment amid an on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to al­le­ga­tions of mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice against Hare­wood-Christo­pher.

Barataria/San Juan MP Sad­dam Ho­sein said while the Op­po­si­tion is not sad­dened to see Hare­wood-Christo­pher leave, they be­lieve due process should have been fol­lowed.

“We have in­di­cat­ed from the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress that we were dis­sat­is­fied with the per­for­mance of Mrs Hare­wood-Christo­pher’s tenure as com­mis­sion­er. We still hold that view. I don’t want to com­ment par­tic­u­lar­ly on the mer­its of the case, save and ex­cept that this was an op­por­tune mo­ment to fire the com­mis­sion­er, and I think they messed it up.”

UNC deputy leader David Lee la­belled the is­sue an “im­broglio,” but said the UNC had no qualms over Hare­wood-Christo­pher’s re­place­ment. He echoed Ho­sein’s com­plaint that the process was flawed.

“We re­al­ly don’t have an is­sue with these two can­di­dates. It is re­al­ly the process that is tak­ing place and how they ar­rived here to­day.”

Na­pari­ma/Ma­yaro MP Rod­ney Charles, one of the five so-called dis­si­dents in the UNC, con­demned the in­ves­ti­ga­tors, whom he felt had “bun­gled” the case.

The top cop was de­tained on Jan­u­ary 30 and re­leased on Feb­ru­ary 1 af­ter spend­ing two days at the St Clair Po­lice Sta­tion. Her at­tor­ney, Pamela El­der, SC, claimed she was in­ter­ro­gat­ed by a ju­nior of­fi­cer.

Charles de­scribed the sit­u­a­tion as a “mess” that should nev­er have hap­pened.

“I would have thought that if you were go­ing to de­tain and ques­tion a com­mis­sion­er of po­lice, you have to have all your ducks lined up. You should on­ly be talk­ing to her to fi­nalise things to lay your charges. Some­thing is wrong with what is go­ing on in Trinidad and To­ba­go. And it has to do with the sys­tems that we have in­her­it­ed from the colo­nial mas­ters that we don’t want to change,” he said.

Charles al­so voiced con­cerns about the process used to se­lect a CoP, DCP and ACP with­in the TTPS.

He re­peat­ed his crit­i­cism from years past that the out­dat­ed sys­tem for these ap­point­ments con­tin­ues to cre­ate is­sues for the TTPS.

“We’ve got to change it. It is not work­ing. We have ap­point­ed end­less com­mis­sion­ers of po­lice and deputy com­mis­sion­ers of po­lice. Crime is in­creas­ing. So, com­mon sense would tell us, in­stead of try­ing to force fit peo­ple in­to an ob­zocky sys­tem, change the bloody sys­tem, change it. And sit down with the op­po­si­tion and come up with a plan us­ing best prac­tices so we could get the best and the bright­est to deal with this crit­i­cal prob­lem of crime.”

He al­so re­called that the sys­tem was de­vel­oped by the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), with the as­sis­tance of the UNC un­der Bas­deo Pan­day.

Fur­ther­more, Charles said it is not in the coun­try’s best in­ter­est for par­lia­men­tar­i­ans to mere­ly dis­cuss the can­di­dates’ cur­ricu­lums vi­tae (CVs) with­out hav­ing the op­por­tu­ni­ty to ask chal­leng­ing ques­tions of those be­ing vet­ted for the role.

Ma­yaro MP Rush­ton Paray, an­oth­er dis­si­dent, agreed the process needs an over­haul.

“The Patrick Man­ning/Bas­deo Pan­day arrange­ment in 1995 with how a po­lice com­mis­sion­er ought to be se­lect­ed, that has gone past its use­ful­ness. Clear­ly, there are weak­ness­es in the sys­tem and we are see­ing it to­day.”

He al­so ex­pressed frus­tra­tion about be­ing re­strict­ed by de­bate rules lim­it­ing dis­cus­sions to the CVs. He al­so lament­ed the em­bar­rass­ment this sit­u­a­tion has caused for T&T.

“This lat­est fi­as­co with the com­mis­sion­er of po­lice has us as the laugh­ing­stock of po­lice ser­vices around the Caribbean.”

He al­so voiced sus­pi­cions of Gov­ern­ment com­plic­i­ty, re­fer­ring to a let­ter from DCP Mar­tin to the Prime Min­is­ter in­quir­ing about the ap­proval of the pur­chase of two sniper ri­fles. Paray con­sid­ered the let­ter too lit­tle, too late.

“Af­ter you’ve em­bar­rassed the coun­try, the of­fice of the po­lice com­mis­sion­er, now you go­ing and ask the head of the se­cu­ri­ty coun­cil if he knew about these ri­fles and whether they ap­proved it? It is re­al­ly a case of the tail wag­ging the dog. That can­not be right for a coun­try like Trinidad and To­ba­go, who wants to re­turn to a lead­er­ship role in Cari­com, and we are fum­bling, fum­bling, and bungling every sin­gle thing.”

An­oth­er dis­si­dent, Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly, not­ed that this sit­u­a­tion did not bode well for TTPS morale and pub­lic con­fi­dence.

“In a pe­ri­od where you have the po­lice ser­vice ex­er­cis­ing and be­ing armed with aug­ment­ed pow­ers dur­ing a State of Emer­gency, this clear­ly sets back the po­lice ser­vice in terms of what they may have been able to achieve with mem­bers of the pub­lic and with com­bat­ting crim­i­nals. So, I think we’re not in a good place.”

He al­so em­pha­sised that the sit­u­a­tion was a dis­trac­tion from ad­dress­ing crime and agreed there was no is­sue with the top cop’s named re­place­ment.

“I re­al­ly am not for or against DCP Ben­jamin. I think what I’m in­ter­est­ed in is know­ing that what­ev­er hap­pens at the end of the day, that the coun­try starts to get back fos­ter­ing and nur­tur­ing con­fi­dence in the TTPS.”

Cou­va South MP Rudy In­dars­ingh mean­while em­pha­sised that her rights were vi­o­lat­ed.

“If you are not pro­vid­ed with the charges, where you are not pro­vid­ed or giv­en an op­por­tu­ni­ty to be heard, it re­al­ly vi­o­lates the prin­ci­ples of nat­ur­al jus­tice and I said, good in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions prac­tices. And if you do not pro­vide all this or you do not ad­here to these prin­ci­ples, it could be con­strued as harsh and op­pres­sive,” he said.