Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The Par­lia­ment meets on Fri­day, im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter Car­ni­val, to de­bate no­ti­fi­ca­tions for se­nior T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) of­fi­cers Wen­dell Lu­cas, Ju­nior Ben­jamin and Natasha George to be­come Deputy Com­mis­sion­ers of Po­lice, af­ter they were nom­i­nat­ed by the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PolSC).

But the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress has made it clear that it doesn’t trust the PolSC enough to ac­cept its nom­i­nees.

Gov­ern­ment House leader Camille Robin­son-Reg­is con­firmed to Guardian Me­dia over the week­end that the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives will meet on Feb­ru­ary 16 on the DCP no­ti­fi­ca­tions.

How­ev­er, UNC deputy leader Roodal Mooni­lal re­cent­ly made clear the par­ty’s stance against the PolSC.

The three po­si­tions of DCP in the TTPS have been va­cant for al­most three years.

The no­ti­fi­ca­tions were laid in the House last De­cem­ber. They were for­ward­ed to the Par­lia­ment by Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo on De­cem­ber 4, af­ter she re­ceived the no­ti­fi­ca­tions from the PolSC.

The three nom­i­nees—act­ing ACP (Ad­min­is­tra­tion) Ben­jamin, W/Supt George of the North East­ern Di­vi­sion and ACP Lu­cas of the White Col­lar Crime Bu­reau—are very se­nior ca­reer po­lice of­fi­cers with ap­prox­i­mate­ly 30 to 33 years ser­vice each, po­lice of­fi­cials said.

De­bate on the no­ti­fi­ca­tions had been ex­pect­ed af­ter they were laid last De­cem­ber. But that didn’t oc­cur since the Fi­nance and Mis­cel­la­neous Pro­vi­sions bills re­spec­tive­ly took prece­dence in de­bates.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley at a me­dia con­fer­ence last Tues­day, had said the DCP no­ti­fi­ca­tions would be done im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter Car­ni­val but didn’t give a date. But fol­low­ing a Guardian Me­dia query, Robin­son-Reg­is con­firmed the date.

In the House on Fri­day, de­bate on the no­ti­fi­ca­tions will be pi­lot­ed by Row­ley, un­der whose name they were list­ed on the agen­da.

Dis­cus­sion on the no­ti­fi­ca­tions take the form of three mo­tions on each per­son.

The mo­tions each cite sec­tion 123(1)(a) of the Con­sti­tu­tion, which pro­vides that the PolSC shall have the pow­er to ap­point per­sons to hold or act in the of­fice of Com­mis­sion­er and Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice. It was al­so not­ed that un­der sec­tion 123(3), the PolSC shall sub­mit to the Pres­i­dent a list of names of the per­sons nom­i­nat­ed for ap­point­ment to the of­fice of Com­mis­sion­er or DCP.

The mo­tions fur­ther cite Sec­tion 123(4), where the Pres­i­dent shall is­sue a no­ti­fi­ca­tion in re­spect of each per­son nom­i­nat­ed and the no­ti­fi­ca­tion shall be sub­ject to af­fir­ma­tive res­o­lu­tion of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

De­bate on the mat­ter will be done be­fore the Prime Min­is­ter is ex­pect­ed to leave for Guyana on Feb­ru­ary 18. He’ll be at­tend­ing the Guyana En­er­gy Con­fer­ence over Feb­ru­ary 19-23 and sub­se­quent­ly the 46th Cari­com con­fer­ence. That is al­so in Guyana over Feb­ru­ary 25-28 .

Robin­son-Reg­is: Kam­la try­ing to be rel­e­vant

UNC’s Mooni­lal, who is ex­pect­ed to lead the Op­po­si­tion’s re­sponse in the de­bate on the no­ti­fi­ca­tions, had raised con­cerns over the PolSC.

Mooni­lal had said, “We can­not trust the PolSC be­cause look what hap­pened (with oth­er ap­point­ments). So we’re not in a po­si­tion to ac­cept their nom­i­nees.”

While not­ing he was cast­ing no as­per­sions on Lu­cas, George and Ben­jamin, Mooni­lal added, “I’m talk­ing about the PolSC be­cause if they did us ‘that’ with the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, what will they do with the Deputy Com­mis­sion­ers, one of whom - Mr Lu­cas or Ms George or some­body else - will even­tu­al­ly act as Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice. So, the PolSC) can­not be trust­ed in these cir­cum­stances un­til they ac­count for their nom­i­nee of Ms Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher.”

UNC chair­man Dave Tan­coo said the UNC would dis­cuss it in cau­cus.

Mean­while, on the planned law to re­move from Par­lia­ment the ap­proval for act­ing CoPs and Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s crit­i­cism that re­mov­ing Par­lia­men­tary over­sight was an un­de­mo­c­ra­t­ic step and would “cre­ate an eas­i­er av­enue” for ap­point­ment of Gov­ern­ment’s “po­lit­i­cal cronies”, Robin­son-Reg­is said, “There is noth­ing be­fore the Par­lia­ment as yet so I have no com­ment to make. The Op­po­si­tion Leader has not seen any bill ei­ther. But it is clear that she feels she must say some­thing—any­thing—to re­main rel­e­vant. That’s her pre­rog­a­tive.”