Trinidad’s Parliament approved Junior Benjamin as acting police commissioner and Anand Ramesar as acting deputy. The vote followed a heated exchange.
Trinidad and Tobago’s House of Representatives approved motions Wednesday confirming Deputy Commissioner of Police Junior Benjamin to act as Commissioner of Police and Assistant Commissioner of Police Anand Ramesar to act as Deputy Commissioner of Police, following weeks of questions over the police service’s leadership during Commissioner Allister Guevarro’s continued absence. The motion approving Ramesar passed 23 votes in favor to eight against, with no abstentions; the motion approving Benjamin passed on a voice vote.
Homeland Security Minister Roger Alexander, who piloted both motions, clarified during the debate that Ramesar holds the substantive rank of Assistant Commissioner of Police, not senior superintendent, after an Opposition member, a former police officer, questioned the nomination process. Alexander said Ramesar had been interviewed by the Police Service Commission and placed on a merit list before his nomination. Speaker Members called the House to order at one point after Alexander suggested he could administer a polygraph test to an Opposition member, prompting Deputy Speaker Esmond Forde to intervene and redirect the debate back to the matters under consideration. Alexander later apologized to the House. He said both nominees were experienced career police officers he had personally worked alongside, and defended the appointments as consistent with how the police service operates even amid minor administrative questions.
Guevarro has been absent from the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service since mid-August, with Benjamin having informally assumed “practical leadership” of the organization in the interim. Under Section 123 of the Constitution, only the Police Service Commission has the authority to appoint persons to act in the offices of Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner of Police, but any such nomination requires approval by a simple majority in the House. Opposition members, including PNM chairman Marvin Gonzales, had previously pressed the government over Guevarro’s whereabouts and whether a formal acting appointment was in place, arguing the absence of one raised questions about proper oversight of the police service’s operations. A 2024 attempt to remove parliamentary approval from the process failed when Opposition MPs, then in government, voted against the constitutional amendment, which required a two-thirds majority.