AND RISHARD KHAN

JUNIOR Benjamin has been approved by Parliament to become TT’s next acting Commissioner of Police (CoP).

The House of Representatives unanimously approved a government motion for DCP Benjamin to be acting Commissioner of Police (CoP) and ACP Curt Simon to become an acting DCP on February 5. The debate lasted less than 90 minutes for both motions.

This short debate belied the many days of headline news generated by actions which preceded it, that is, the suspension of CoP Erla Harewood-Christopher amid a police probe into the import of two sniper rifles for the Strategic Services Agency (SSA).

The Prime Minister moved both motions.

Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Moonilal responded for the Opposition in the debate on Benjamin, and Barataria/San Juan MP Saddam Hosein to the motion on Simon. Each time the Speaker put a motion to MPs, she also asked “Any against?” to which the Opposition stayed silent.

While the House sat, attorneys for Harewood-Christopher initiated legal action in the High Court in Port of Spain after the Police Service Commission (PSC) did not meet a February 4 deadline set by senior counsel Pamela Elder to reinstate her client, in a pre-action protocol letter to PSC head Dr Wendell Wallace. Harewood-Christopher has not been charged with any criminal offence nor put under disciplinary action, but ordered not to report for work or discharge her duties.

Rowley repeatedly said the Government was acting impartially in the motions in Parliament. However Moonilal said the Harewood-Christopher imbroglio had only arisen after the Government had given her two extensions to her initial tenure as CoP.

Moving the first motion, Rowley said the Government wished it did not have the responsibility to bring the motions, but it could not make its own path.

Reading the PSC letter to the President recommending Benjamin act as CoP, he said the decision had been made by the PSC.

“I think this is a good point as head of the Government to make it pellucidly clear that this operation has absolutely nothing to do with the Government.”

He said the Government was a separate operating entity to the PSC, police and Office of President.

“I was making the point that a police investigation has absolutely nothing to do with the Government – not knowledge, not consent, not operation, not responsibility – because we all know, in this House and in the minds of people who have been commenting on this matter, that the Government of TT has no role whatsoever in directing the police as to who they should go after, who they should investigate, how the investigation should go, how they should arrest or not arrest.”

Rowley said the police told the PSC of its operations and the PSC told the President of a vacancy in the CoP position, after which MPs were notified of a nomination for acting CoP.

“We are called to fill the vacancy.”

He said Benjamin’s CV was well-known as he had recently been discussed in his appointment as DCP, and the Government had no new information on him.

Rowley said the Gove