An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro will be sworn in to­day as T&T’s Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (CoP) in the first-ever hand­ing over pa­rade of its kind.

The out­go­ing act­ing CoP, Ju­nior Ben­jamin, will pass the ba­ton over to the 49-year-old fa­ther of two dur­ing a for­mal cer­e­mo­ny at the Po­lice Acad­e­my in St James.

The event, sched­uled to be­gin at 4 pm, will show­case var­i­ous arms of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS), in­clud­ing the Mount­ed Branch and the Ca­nine Unit, along with pre­sen­ta­tions from spe­cialised units.

Guardian Me­dia was told a dress re­hearsal yes­ter­day was “ex­cit­ing” for Ben­jamin and Gue­var­ro.

Speak­ing hours ahead of the much an­tic­i­pat­ed hand­ing over, Ben­jamin thanked God and the au­thor­i­ties for what he de­scribed as an “awe­some” ex­pe­ri­ence in of­fice.

Con­firm­ing he had been present at the acad­e­my to par­tic­i­pate in yes­ter­day’s run-through, he said, “This is the first time we are do­ing this and we want to make sure we get it right. Every­one’s spir­its are good and it is amaz­ing, the num­ber of things that are go­ing to be done.”

He said metic­u­lous plan­ning had gone in­to or­gan­is­ing the pro­gramme in a bid to show just how much we wel­come the new Com­mis­sion­er in­to this arrange­ment to lead the or­gan­i­sa­tion.”

Ben­jamin promised to­day’s pa­rade would be some­thing of a treat for those in at­ten­dance, as well as the wider pub­lic.

Al­though his stint at the helm of the TTPS was short, hav­ing on­ly sat in the chair as CoP from Feb­ru­ary 6, Ben­jamin said, “I want to en­cour­age per­sons to see this as the be­gin­ning of a new dis­pen­sa­tion with­in the or­gan­i­sa­tion.”

Re­it­er­at­ing that the main ob­jec­tive re­mained mak­ing the TTPS an em­ploy­er of choice, he said, “This is how we want to re­al­ly wel­come our new com­mis­sion­er.”

More ex­cit­ed for what is to come, Ben­jamin said, “At this time, pur­pose ex­ceeds my pain and I know Mr Gue­var­ro is go­ing to bring a whole lot of ex­pe­ri­ence to build­ing the Po­lice Ser­vice.”

Cel­e­brat­ing the TTPS’ ac­com­plish­ments dur­ing the past sev­er­al months, he said, “We have come a long way from the time I got it to where we are now, in such a short space of time.

“To hand over the TTPS now with so many ac­com­plish­ments in terms of where the crime sit­u­a­tion is, the morale of the of­fi­cers are re­al­ly more up than how it was...it is re­fresh­ing to know he is not start­ing from ground ze­ro.”

Ben­jamin said he was hap­py to con­tin­ue be­ing part of the ex­ec­u­tive which will serve un­der Gue­var­ro’s lead­er­ship.

To­day’s pa­rade was said to be the brain­child of act­ing Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Curt Si­mon.

Sev­er­al dig­ni­taries, in­clud­ing Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty, Roger Alexan­der, are ex­pect­ed to be in at­ten­dance.