By Vivian Bowen

Copyright trinidadexpress

This was how Commissioner of Police Allister Guevarro yesterday described the leak of confidential vacation leave records of senior police officers.

He said the action was intended to undermine the Police Service’s integrity and disrupt its operations.

He said the vacation leave document was “leaked to a social media blogger by a ‘not so anonymous’ source, was done with petty malice and reckless disregard for institutional integrity”.

He did not identify the blogger specifically by name.

The vacation leave of the senior officers was posted on the Facebook page Newsauce which is operated by blogger Rhoda Bharath.

The post gave details on the ranks and accumulated vacation leave of senior officers—DCPs, ACPs, senior superintendent and superintendents.

While the names of the officers were blacked out, the rank, number of accumulated leave days were visible.

Assistant Commissioner of Police Wayne Mystar was sent on 16 months accumulated vacation leave earlier this year and there was a reassignment of police executive portfolios.

A question was raised in the post about Mystar’s leave when other officers had accumulated more leave.

However, in a media release, issued yesterday, Guevarro, without naming Mystar, said: “The decision to have the officer proceed on his accumulated leave was done in accordance with his lawful entitlements and in alignment with strategic planning, and not as a result of personal targeting.”

He added that any narrative suggesting otherwise was “false, deliberately misleading, and designed to sow discord”.

“More troubling, however, is the breach of confidentiality,” Guevarro argued. “The unauthorised release of internal personnel data was geared towards disrupting carefully coordinated deployment strategies and exposed sensitive information that should never have been weaponised for personal vindication. This act is not whistleblowing; it is outright sabotage.”

He added: “And to the blogger who gleefully published this material, I say to you that trading institutional confidentiality for a few likes is not journalism—it is digital gossip dressed up as relevance.

“I remind all members of the TTPS and the public that our duty is to protect and serve, not to indulge in theatrics or social media sensationalism. Commentary without context, and criticism without facts, do nothing to strengthen our institutions; they only erode public trust.”

Guevarro said he would “not tolerate attempts to undermine this Service through cowardly leaks and distorted narratives. The TTPS is bigger than any one individual, and our mission will not be derailed by those who confuse grievance with righteousness.”

When contacted yesterday, Bharath said: “The Commissioner of Police needs to focus on the issue at hand. The issue is leave and sending officers on leave; he needs to give the reasons for sending officers on leave. The issue is not where I got the information from or who would have sent the information to me, because if an assistant commissioner is being sent on leave for his or her well-being and has accumulated 16 months of leave, then what about the other assistant commissioners and other senior officers who have accumulated even more than 16 months of leave? Why are they not also being sent on leave for their well-being?”