Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion’s nom­i­na­tion of act­ing Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro to be­come Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (CoP) and As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er Wayne Mys­tar to act as Deputy Com­mis­sion­er, are list­ed on to­mor­row’s House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives agen­da but de­bate is yet to be con­firmed.

The Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s re­port on T&T’s fi­nan­cial ac­counts for 2024, which Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­cent­ly hint­ed would con­tain some “se­ri­ous rev­e­la­tions,” will al­so be laid in Par­lia­ment to­mor­row.

They are among 59 pa­pers to be laid when the House meets from 1.30 pm for its first work­ing sit­ting since the 13th Par­lia­ment was launched on May 23.

Among the pa­pers list­ed for pre­sen­ta­tion in Par­lia­ment are Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo’s no­ti­fi­ca­tion is­sued on May 9 con­cern­ing the nom­i­na­tion of Gue­var­ro as CoP and her June 3 no­ti­fi­ca­tion of the nom­i­na­tion of Mys­tar to act as DCP.

Both no­ti­fi­ca­tions will be pre­sent­ed by Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der.

The con­tract of for­mer CoP Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher end­ed in May. Ju­nior Ben­jamin is act­ing as CoP.

The Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PolSC) ad­ver­tised the post of CoP in April 2024 and 11 ap­pli­ca­tions were re­ceived. Af­ter in­ter­views were com­plet­ed in March, a short list was sent to the Pres­i­dent. The first name on the list is nor­mal­ly for­ward­ed to the Par­lia­ment.

Two mo­tions con­cern­ing the no­ti­fi­ca­tions are al­so list­ed on Par­lia­ment’s or­der pa­per to be pi­lot­ed by Alexan­der. Both cit­ed the PolSC’s pow­er to ap­point per­sons to hold or act in the of­fice of com­mis­sion­er and deputy com­mis­sion­er, the process for nom­i­na­tion and that the no­ti­fi­ca­tion is sub­ject to af­fir­ma­tive res­o­lu­tion of the House.

Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials could not con­firm whether the two mo­tions would be de­bat­ed to­mor­row. Clar­i­fi­ca­tion will come at to­day’s post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing.

Gue­var­ro has served in the Po­lice Ser­vice for more than 20 years, with key as­sign­ments in the Spe­cial Branch and in­ves­tiga­tive lead­er­ship roles.

In 2010, when he held the rank of In­spec­tor, Gue­var­ro re­port­ed­ly head­ed an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to how a box of con­fi­den­tial Supreme Court doc­u­ments end­ed up at a pri­vate law of­fice. In 2022, as a Spe­cial Branch rep­re­sen­ta­tive, he was part of the com­mit­tee ap­point­ed to probe that year’s na­tion­wide black­out.

Mys­tar, head of the Cen­tral-South Po­lice Di­vi­sion, has held a range of op­er­a­tional roles. Dur­ing the 2011 State of Emer­gency, he served as po­lice pub­lic in­for­ma­tion of­fi­cer and head of the Traf­fic and High­way Pa­trol Branch. He lat­er led the Mount­ed Branch and served in the North­ern, Cen­tral, and South­ern Di­vi­sions.

Re­cent­ly, Mys­tar led pub­lic trust and com­mu­ni­ty ini­tia­tives, in­clud­ing the launch of a crime tip hot­line and pa­trols tar­get­ing do­mes­tic vi­o­lence and gang ac­tiv­i­ty.

Al­so list­ed for de­bate in Par­lia­ment to­mor­row is the Chil­dren’s Life Fund (Amend­ment) Bill, 2025, pi­lot­ed by Health Min­is­ter Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe, and the T&T Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty (Re­peal) Bill, 2025, pi­lot­ed by Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dave Tan­coo. It will be the maid­en de­liv­ery by each min­is­ter.

Fo­cus will al­so be on the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s Re­port on T&T’s pub­lic ac­counts for the fi­nan­cial year end­ed Sep­tem­ber 30, 2024.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar ig­nit­ed in­trigue af­ter her first Cab­i­net meet­ing, when she an­nounced: “You will get some se­ri­ous rev­e­la­tions con­tained with­in that, as was con­tained in the last one.”

The Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s re­port for 2023 caused a furore with the past PNM gov­ern­ment, af­ter $2.6 bil­lion was sub­mit­ted af­ter the dead­line for sub­mis­sion of in­for­ma­tion. It was found late by Fi­nance Min­istry of­fi­cials due to a new Cen­tral Bank cheque clear­ing sys­tem and caused an im­passe be­tween the then gov­ern­ment and Au­di­tor Gen­er­al.

Tan­coo, who will present the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s 2024 re­port, will re­fer it to the Pub­lic Ac­counts Com­mit­tee. He will al­so present T&T’s ac­counts for 2024, which will al­so be for­ward­ed to the PAC.

There are no Op­po­si­tion ques­tions list­ed. PNM of­fi­cials didn’t com­ment on the agen­da or the fil­ing of ur­gent ques­tions “to avoid di­vulging strat­e­gy.”

Mean­while, Per­sad-Bisses­sar will al­so chair the UNC’s par­lia­men­tary cau­cus of sen­a­tors and MPs to­day, and is ex­pect­ed to speak at the sub­se­quent post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing on re­cent de­vel­op­ments, in­clud­ing board ap­point­ments.