Gail Alexan­der

There is need to be more ju­di­cious in se­lect­ing mem­bers of ser­vice com­mis­sions, says In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor Harold Ramkissoon. Ramkissoon made the point in the Sen­ate on Tues­day, dur­ing de­bate on an Op­po­si­tion PNM mo­tion on the strengths and de­fi­cien­cies of the Po­lice Ser­vice.

Ramkissoon said the de­bate was time­ly, ow­ing to the cur­rent con­tro­ver­sies. "How did we get here? Who is re­spon­si­ble for the im­age of the Po­lice Ser­vice?" Ramkissoon said. Not­ing con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­vi­sions for the ser­vice and the lay­ers of bu­reau­cra­cy, Ramkissoon said the process was cum­ber­some and cir­cuitous.

He ques­tioned why the law gov­ern­ing it had not been changed to make it less cum­ber­some. "Why was the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion giv­en a man­age­r­i­al role?" he added. "Not so much is wrong with the sys­tem as the peo­ple who man­age the sys­tem," Ramkissoon al­so said.

Say­ing a sim­ple process was need­ed to se­lect a po­lice com­mis­sion­er and deputy com­mis­sion­er, Ramkissoon added there was need to be more ju­di­cious in who is se­lect­ed for ser­vice com­mis­sions. On the CoP, Ramkissoon said if some­one hired to do a job and had ap­praisal and did not make it, "you fire them and stand the con­se­quences."

He said the cur­rent CoP had on­ly been here a year and crime was al­ready out of con­trol when he ar­rived . "Can we ex­pect him to make a dent in it in a year? And is he get­ting the sup­port of of­fi­cers around him?" Ramkissoon asked. He said the crux of the Po­lice Ser­vice prob­lem was man­age­ment.

"Where is the suc­ces­sion plan­ning? Are we look­ing at po­ten­tial lead­ers and try­ing to groom them? Where is the ca­reer de­vel­op­ment?" Ramkissoon al­so said cor­rup­tion was very per­va­sive. "It is like a can­cer eat­ing in­to Trinidad and To­ba­go...Will the Gov­ern­ment be able to do bet­ter? I hope so for the sake of us all," he added.