Dillon: Parliament gave CoP power to fire officers

He told MPs, “It was this House that gave the CoP under the Police Service Act 2006, the authority and responsibility to manage the TT Police Service.” Dillon said Williams and all of his predecessors have been doing so under Section 74 (2b) of the Act. “He has the autonomy and the responsibility and as such the Police Commissioner has done what he did in his own discretion,” Dillon concluded.

Speaker of the House, Bridgid Annisette-George, disallowed a question from Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Moonilal to Dillion as to whether Dillon was aware of the process used by Williams to terminate senior police officers. Later in the sitting, Minister in the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) Stuart Young said 65 officers of the Special Security Unit (SSU), formerly assigned to the OPM, were terminated on November 21, 2016.

Young said the cost of the termination of that employment was $507,333.24. However Young was unable to indicate how many police officers have taken up the former duties of the SSU at the OPM.

He indicated that information was not available to him at the time.