Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

As he pre­pares to en­ter pub­lic of­fice for the first time, Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Roger Alexan­der says he is not daunt­ed by the task ahead and looks for­ward to mak­ing a sig­nif­i­cant im­pact on crime and se­cu­ri­ty in T&T.

Alexan­der, who was sworn in as a Cab­i­net Min­is­ter at a cer­e­mo­ny on Sat­ur­day, served as a po­lice of­fi­cer for more than 30 years, be­fore re­tir­ing at the rank of Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent to be­come a UNC can­di­date.

To­geth­er with for­mer crim­i­nal de­fence at­tor­ney Wayne Sturge, the To­co/San­gre Grande MP, who was ap­point­ed as Min­is­ter of De­fence, he will be re­spon­si­ble for na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty af­fairs.

In an in­ter­view out­side his cam­paign head­quar­ters in Tu­na­puna yes­ter­day, Alexan­der said he in­tend­ed to meet soon with var­i­ous heads of the pro­tec­tive ser­vices, in­clud­ing act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Ju­nior Ben­jamin and of­fi­cials from the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA) to be­gin work.

Com­ment­ing on his ex­pec­ta­tions on his first day in of­fice to­day, Alexan­der said he want­ed to meet with the dif­fer­ent se­cu­ri­ty stake­hold­ers to as­sess the cur­rent na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty land­scape.

“A na­tion that de­serves to be se­cure, the gate-keep­ers can­not sleep un­til it is so,” he said.

“From to­mor­row af­ter I re­ceive cer­tain doc­u­ments, then I know how to go for­ward from there.

“It is im­por­tant be­cause every ap­pa­ra­tus of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, my­self and Mr Sturge we in­tend to work hand in hand and have a re­sponse this na­tion has nev­er seen be­fore.”

Alexan­der used the anal­o­gy of a ship at sea to de­scribe the firm ac­tion that will be used to tack­le crime and to warn crim­i­nals that law­less­ness would not be tol­er­at­ed.

“This ship (the gov­ern­ment), is new­ly paint­ed, with a new en­gine in­stalled, a new cap­tain we are sail­ing. If you in­tend to dis­rupt our sail­ing and the com­fort of all cit­i­zens, then we have no choice but to throw you over­board in­to shark-in­fest­ed wa­ters.

“The pro­tec­tion of this coun­try as a ship is of para­mount im­por­tance, every cit­i­zen must en­joy the com­fort of their own home, of their street and what they worked hard for, so if we have some peo­ple who want to dis­rupt then we must get be­tween the dis­rup­tors and the law-abid­ing cit­i­zens,” he said.

Some po­lice of­fi­cers on so­cial me­dia raised con­cerns about Alexan­der’s work­ing re­la­tion­ship with the TTPS fol­low­ing his re­cent res­ig­na­tion. One of­fi­cer won­dered whether there would be any “awk­ward in­ter­ac­tions” be­tween Alexan­der and of­fi­cers he was ju­nior to in rank.

How­ev­er, af­ter be­ing sworn in on Sat­ur­day, Alexan­der as­sured that there was no bit­ter­ness on his part.

“It’s all about work­ing to­geth­er to make the in­sti­tu­tion bet­ter. I have moved away from that feel­ing that en­coun­ters with peo­ple have to be bit­ter, I have re­placed the word with bet­ter, so I in­tend to make the in­sti­tu­tion bet­ter than be­fore.”

Act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Ju­nior Ben­jamin said he did not an­tic­i­pate any mixed emo­tions among of­fi­cers and all per­son­nel would con­duct them­selves pro­fes­sion­al­ly while ex­tend­ing their full sup­port to the new gov­ern­ment and their min­is­ters, in­clud­ing Alexan­der.

“Peo­ple in times past were po­lice of­fi­cers be­fore be­com­ing min­is­ters. Re­spect was giv­en be­cause it’s about re­spect­ing the of­fice that the per­son holds and we in the TTPS don’t have a prob­lem with that,” he said

“We will con­tin­ue to re­spect all peo­ple for the of­fice that they hold and who they are, so I don’t see a prob­lem with that all and we wish Mr Alexan­der and Mr Wayne Sturge all the best.”

Pres­i­dent of the T&T PO­lice Ser­vice So­cial Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion (TTPSS­WA), Act­ing ASP Gideon Dick­son, said he ex­pect­ed to have a good work­ing re­la­tion­ship with Alexan­der.

He added that Alexan­der’s back­ground as a po­lice of­fi­cer would be an ad­van­tage in un­der­stand­ing the de­mands and chal­lenges fac­ing the po­lice ser­vice.

“We have some­one who just re­cent­ly left the ser­vice and is very at­tuned to the is­sues plagu­ing the TTPS in terms of re­sources and mo­ti­va­tion and he should use that in his favour to fix this pre­mier law en­force­ment agency in the coun­try,” he said

Dick­son said he looked for­ward to meet­ing with Alexan­der as soon as pos­si­ble to dis­cuss is­sues fac­ing the po­lice ser­vice, to “cre­ate the right syn­er­gy” to raise morale and en­hance the de­liv­ery of ser­vice to the pub­lic.