Deosaran heads police audit

“One of the major failings of the country is the inability of the Police Service to keep pace and get on top of the criminal conduct in TT as reflected by the relatively unsatisfactory level of detection and crime suppression which we are experiencing,” the Prime Minister said. Declaring these are “facts which we can’t run away from,” Rowley indicated the best response to deal with criminal elements in TT which seem to be getting “more and more brazen”, is a well organised and well managed Police Service. He hinted there were “other responses that have to be made” but did not explain what those responses were.

The Prime Minister was confident that the data generated by Deosaran’s committee, which includes Deputy Police Commissioner Harold Phillip who acted last year as Police Commissioner while Stephen Williams was on leave, “will allow us to respond to the need to support, prune or trim or to relocate as the case might be.” Indicating the committee will be serviced by the National Security Ministry and the entire exercise is drive by the National Security Council (NSC) which he chairs, Rowley said $21 billion has been spent on policing over the last decade and the Police Service currently has 6,000 officers on its payroll.

The Prime Minister said while the original intention was for the audit to be done largely with assistance from the British, that support is still forthcoming but “we decided to start from the local end.”