Alexander defends independence of probe into PNM headquarters funding

Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

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Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der is in­sist­ing that the po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the fund­ing of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s (PNM) mul­ti­mil­lion-dol­lar Bal­isi­er House head­quar­ters is be­ing con­duct­ed in­de­pen­dent­ly and has noth­ing to do with pol­i­tics. He is urg­ing the pub­lic to al­low in­ves­ti­ga­tors and the courts to car­ry out their du­ties with­out po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence.

Alexan­der made the com­ments yes­ter­day while speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia at a health fair host­ed at the Tu­na­puna con­stituen­cy of­fice. His com­ment came a day af­ter the High Court grant­ed the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) a Pre­lim­i­nary Un­ex­plained Wealth Or­der (PU­WO), com­pelling the PNM to ex­plain the source of fund­ing for the con­struc­tion of its Port-of-Spain head­quar­ters.

The or­der was grant­ed af­ter Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro au­tho­rised act­ing As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Ram­dath Phillip to ap­ply to the High Court un­der Sec­tion 58(1) of the Civ­il As­set Re­cov­ery and Man­age­ment and Un­ex­plained Wealth Act, 2019. The ap­pli­ca­tion names the trustees of the PNM and the par­ty, rep­re­sent­ed by its gen­er­al sec­re­tary, as re­spon­dents.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions about the in­ves­ti­ga­tion, Alexan­der said the mat­ter should be left to the le­gal process.

“I al­low the courts to do their thing, and I al­low the po­lice to do their in­ves­ti­ga­tion. I be­lieve in the rule of law. Some­thing that I think we have al­lowed to run crazy for years. Now that it is hap­pen­ing, every­body is so sur­prised and so shocked. Al­low the po­lice to do their job. Al­low the courts to make a de­ci­sion. That is how we dis­play true democ­ra­cy in Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

The min­is­ter al­so de­fend­ed the use of un­ex­plained wealth in­ves­ti­ga­tions, ar­gu­ing that au­thor­i­ties should not wait un­til an in­di­vid­ual is ac­cused of an­oth­er of­fence be­fore ex­am­in­ing whether their as­sets are con­sis­tent with their known means. He main­tained that such in­quiries form part of le­git­i­mate law en­force­ment and should not be viewed as un­usu­al.

Ad­dress­ing crit­i­cism that the in­ves­ti­ga­tion is po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed, Alexan­der dis­missed the sug­ges­tion and urged cit­i­zens to have con­fi­dence in the coun­try’s in­sti­tu­tions.

“Trust the process. There is al­ways an is­sue be­tween the an­gles that we are look­ing at, and per­sons just need to trust the process. Al­low the in­sti­tu­tions to do their job. Stop sup­port­ing reck­less, care­less be­hav­iour that is dam­ag­ing so­ci­ety.”

Alexan­der al­so sought to dis­tance his min­istry from op­er­a­tional po­lice mat­ters, stress­ing that min­is­ters do not di­rect crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

“The po­lice do their part. We don’t in­ter­ject in any way in po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tions. I’m not go­ing to call the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice ask­ing about in­ves­ti­ga­tions. If some­thing comes to my desk, I will ask for an as­sess­ment. Oth­er than that, I al­low every agency, in­clu­sive of the po­lice, to do their job.”

Asked about so­cial me­dia claims sug­gest­ing se­nior for­mer gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials could face im­mi­nent ar­rests, Alexan­der said he had no knowl­edge of any such plans.

“I am not aware of any in­for­ma­tion about that, to be hon­est. Again, I will al­low the po­lice to do their job.”