PSC chairman: Oversight needed for Police Service

THE Police Service Commission (PSC) wants Cabinet approval to create an oversight committee to help the commission ensure there is proper management of the Police Service. PSC chairman Christopher Thomas made the disclosure when he spoke at yesterday’s parliamentary Joint Select Committee (Municipal Corporations and Service Commissions) meeting at the Red House. Replying to questions from Government ministers Christine Kangaloo and Eudine Job-Davis, Thomas said there was a delegation of responsibilities between the PSC and the commissioner regarding operations of the Police Service. “In delegating these functions, we have done so in the understanding that if the commission does not have the staff to do that, but there is a need for the commissioner to be involved in the actual choice and promotion of persons if he has to manage his service properly. “We have delegated these functions, but we have not delegated the overall responsibility.

So the Commission has been monitoring the developments and more recently, in discussions with the commissioner, in terms of our new dispensation, we have taken a decision to establish an oversight committee. That committee will in fact, hopefully with the approval of Cabinet, be established very shortly and will look at the several processes involved in the discharge of the jurisdiction of the commission and inform the commission from time to time whether these delegations are properly discharged,” Thomas stated. Committee chairman, Independent Senator Prof Ramesh Deosaran, said while there was a grey area on the issue of jurisdiction in the Police Service’s affairs, the PSC “has a further reach that should be enforced in terms of management.”

Responding to Kangaloo’s questions about discipline in the Police Service, Thomas revealed: “We now have an additional tribunal. The process is a very difficult one. Only recently, as a commission, have we been able to dismiss police officers who have been convicted of criminal offences.” He also disclosed that a record will be kept of police complainants who fail to appear in court cases. Thomas said these officers will not be considered for promotion if they cannot provide good reason for their absenteeism. On UNC Senator Roy Augustus’ concerns about flawed police recruitment practices, Thomas said the PSC was looking to restructure the entire recruitment process.

He said prospective recruits were now required to have five Ordinary Level passes instead of three, discussions are afoot for community involvement in the pre-selection of officers and the restructuring of police examinations. The PSC chairman added that promotions would be made on merit and he did not see any conflict where issues of gender or ethnicity were concerned. Deosaran dismissed Naparima MP Nizam Baksh’s call to disband the Police Service if the bad apples could not be removed as “another cry of desperation.” He also insisted that the Police Service must respond “in a week” to complaints made against police officers by members of the public.