Your editorial of last Tuesday has highlighted a very important area of concern. Your writer quite correctly pointed out that "...there is a perception that the apparatus of T&T's security management... has not as yet delivered the expected dividends." The apparatus described by your writer comprises of the National Security Council chaired by Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, the Ministry of National Security with two ministers, John Sandy and Subhas Panday, and the Ministry of Justice. The most important part of this apparatus to citizens of this country, which was not specifically identified, is the Police Service. And herein lies the very serious problem for "security management" in this country. It is a very serious problem because no one other than the Police Commissioner, Dwayne Gibbs, has any power over the policy direction of the Police Service.
Not the Prime Minister, not the Minister of National Security and definitely not the Police Service Commission. It is such a serious issue that this small country of ours has not one but two crime plans-his and her crime plans. His (the Police Commissioner's) crime plan is not known to the populace. Her (the Prime Minister's) crime plan was, as your newspaper reported on December 22, announced to the country by the Prime Minister at a hamper distribution exercise at her constituency office on December 21. The commissioner, promptly and diplomatically, when asked what he thought, said on national TV that her plan fits in with his plan. What else could he say? What if her plan was different from his plan? What then?
The point is this: This Government was elected partly on the promise that it would fix the crime problem. Now that it is in office it has discovered that the existing constitutional arrangements for the management of the Police Service specifically precludes political preferences and influences from the business of policing. (Not even the Police Service Commission is empowered to give policy directions to the Police Service.) As a consequence of the powerlessness of the Government in relation to policing policy, the Attorney General was recently reported, in evident frustration, as berating senior police officers for poor performance and he demanded that they do something and think outside the box and come up with new initiatives.
He has since been followed by the Prime Minister herself who is reported to have said that as part of her crime plan "emphasis will be placed on finding the criminals," and Minister in the Ministry of National Security, Subhas Panday, last week assured the nation that the Prime Minister is on top of the crime situation. This to me is a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing. They can do nothing about policing under the existing constitutional arrangements for the management of Police Service. But it is time to stop the "ole talk." We need one crime plan, not his and her crime plans. The crime plan should reflect policing policy formally determined by an independent body reflecting the bipartisan views of all of the elected representatives of the people, however these views are secured.
This independent body, whether or not it is the current Police Service Commission suitably empowered, should be given the constitutional power to convey to the office of the Commissioner of Police, the policing policy directions of the Government and people of the country. The independent body should also have the power to take all appropriate actions to ensure that the Police Service performs as the Government and people expect, while at the same time ensuring that there is absolutely no political interference in the day-to-day operations of the Police Service.
Ashton S Brereton
Champs Fleurs