Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher has wel­comed the ap­proval of the nom­i­na­tions of Ju­nior Ben­jamin and Natasha George to the of­fice of Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice by the Par­lia­ment on Fri­day.

She said via a state­ment on Sat­ur­day, "The of­fices of Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice are cru­cial to the ef­fec­tive func­tion­ing of the TTPS and hav­ing them filled sub­stan­tive­ly, is ben­e­fi­cial to the Ser­vice and pro­vides an ex­cel­lent op­por­tu­ni­ty for of­fi­cers to func­tion and con­tribute at the high­est lev­el."

Hare­wood-Christo­pher added, "The TTPS un­doubt­ed­ly has a large pop­u­la­tion of of­fi­cers who are well trained and ex­pe­ri­enced, and very ca­pa­ble of per­form­ing in se­nior roles. Two such of­fi­cers have got­ten their op­por­tu­ni­ty yes­ter­day, and ev­i­dent­ly, there are many more whose time is yet to come, and in­deed will come."

How­ev­er, the Gov­ern­ment yes­ter­day re­ject­ed the nom­i­na­tion of act­ing As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Wen­dell Lu­cas to the po­si­tion of Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (DCP).

Af­ter be­ing praised for his ac­com­plish­ments, long ser­vice and ded­i­ca­tion to the po­lice force by Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds, who moved the mo­tion which of­fered Lu­cas as one of four DCP can­di­dates dur­ing yes­ter­day’s sit­ting of Par­lia­ment, the events that fol­lowed did not go in the of­fi­cer’s favour.

Some 20 Gov­ern­ment MPs vot­ed against Lu­cas, while 12 op­po­si­tion MPs ab­stained from vot­ing.