Act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Ju­nior Ben­jamin be­lieves that Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s goal of hav­ing a more se­cure coun­try in six months is re­al­is­tic and says some progress has al­ready been ob­served by the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS), as ev­i­denced by a drop in this year’s mur­der toll.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar first made the promise of a safer T&T dur­ing her ad­dress at her swear­ing-in at the Pres­i­dent’s House last Thurs­day.

She dou­bled down on this as she spoke to re­porters af­ter the swear­ing-in of her Cab­i­net min­is­ters on Sat­ur­day, as she em­pha­sised the re­sources and tech­ni­cal ca­pa­bil­i­ties at the Gov­ern­ment’s dis­pos­al to as­sist in crime-fight­ing.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment on this yes­ter­day, Ben­jamin agreed that Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s plan was achiev­able, re­fer­ring to the drop in mur­ders record­ed, as he al­so claimed there were cor­re­spond­ing de­creas­es in oth­er cat­e­gories of vi­o­lent crime.

“We will con­tin­ue to do our jobs from the 2025 SoE go­ing for­ward with that same lev­el of vig­i­lance and dili­gence to en­sure a fur­ther re­duc­tion. I be­lieve once we con­tin­ue along with tra­jec­to­ry with the sup­port from the gov­ern­ment, I am sure it is a re­al­is­tic feat,” Ben­jamin said.

As of last Fri­day, there were 130 mur­ders com­pared to 181 for the same pe­ri­od last year. The TTPS had pre­vi­ous­ly at­trib­uted the de­cline in the mur­der toll to the in­tro­duc­tion of a State of Emer­gency (SoE), which took ef­fect from De­cem­ber 30, 2024 and end­ed on April 13.

How­ev­er, in an im­me­di­ate re­sponse, one of­fi­cer as­signed to a tac­ti­cal unit along the East-West cor­ri­dor said while he was op­ti­mistic that the ap­point­ment of for­mer po­lice of­fi­cer Roger Alexan­der as Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty would en­sure a smoother work­flow, he not­ed that oth­er of­fi­cers were wary of his rep­u­ta­tion as be­ing a “worka­holic,” and were an­tic­i­pat­ing a heavy work­load once op­er­a­tional plans and pro­grammes are fi­nalised.

“A lot of peo­ple who worked along­side him and even as his sub­or­di­nates knows that he takes the job very se­ri­ous­ly. The un­der­stand­ing is that Alexan­der has al­ways been a work­er and he nor­mal­ly push­es a lot of long hours and ex­pects the same, so we ex­pect there to be a lot of work com­ing our way in the not-too-dis­tant fu­ture,” the of­fi­cer said.

How­ev­er, Ben­jamin, when con­tact­ed, said the TTPS was in­sis­tent on main­tain­ing a con­sis­tent ap­proach to crime sup­pres­sion and re­mind­ed of­fi­cers of their re­spon­si­bil­i­ties.

“This is on­ly a win-win sit­u­a­tion and of­fi­cers should not see this as more work. This is what we do on a dai­ly ba­sis, we give our lives and hearts to the coun­try to en­sure it gets the safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty need­ed. That is what we are here to do,” Ben­jamin said.

Ben­jamin said he had a “short con­ver­sa­tion” with Alexan­der on Sun­day and was ex­pect­ed to have a meet­ing with Min­is­ter of De­fence Wayne Sturge yes­ter­day, but did not have a joint meet­ing with both min­is­ters yet.

Se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ters set­tling in

Mean­while, Alexan­der and Sturge ar­rived at the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty’s Tem­ple Court, Aber­crom­by Street, Port-of-Spain head­quar­ters yes­ter­day for their first day of work.

Both men were greet­ed by min­istry of­fi­cials on the steps of the build­ing be­fore be­ing led to a brief­ing on the state of the min­istry.

Nei­ther Alexan­der nor Sturge ac­cept­ed ques­tions as they en­tered the build­ing.

How­ev­er, when con­tact­ed for com­ment yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, Alexan­der said the meet­ing was on­go­ing, as he and Sturge were dis­cussing the work­ings of their min­istries.

Alexan­der said as of yes­ter­day, it was un­cer­tain whether he and Sturge would be shar­ing the Aber­crom­by Street of­fice or if one min­istry would be lo­cat­ed else­where.

Sources said while there will be sev­er­al meet­ings ex­pect­ed with Sturge and Alexan­der this week, fur­ther meet­ings to ad­dress mat­ters of in­tel­li­gence-shar­ing will be held next week.