Geisha Kow­lessar

If po­lice of­fi­cers do not take care of the pub­lic as­sets that are as­signed to them - in­clud­ing ve­hi­cles - they will be held ac­count­able. That was the warn­ing yes­ter­day from Deputy Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Jack Ewats­ki, who said an au­dit of all the ve­hi­cles in the Po­lice Ser­vice would be done. He added: "Re­spon­si­bil­i­ty starts by an of­fi­cer check­ing a ve­hi­cle be­fore it is used. "It must be checked to en­sure there is no dam­age, that the flu­id lev­els are checked and de­fi­cien­cies al­so must be re­port­ed. "If of­fi­cers do not ful­fil these ba­sic re­spon­si­bil­i­ties with the pub­lic as­sets giv­en to them, they would be held ac­count­able," Ewats­ki said.

He met yes­ter­day with Deputy Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er in charge of Ad­min­is­tra­tion Stephen Williams, As­sis­tant Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er (Mo­bile) Ter­ry Archibald, Supt in charge of Trans­port Rag­bar Gop­er­sad and the ser­vice's fleet man­ag­er Michael Julius.

The au­dit, Ewats­ki said, would be done by the Trans­port Unit and the fleet man­ag­er. "There will be a com­plete au­dit done of all po­lice ve­hi­cles and we will be us­ing tech­nol­o­gy by way of a data­base sys­tem to as­sist in fleet man­age­ment," Ewats­ki said. He said all po­lice ve­hi­cles would have GPS track­ing de­vices and there would be clear mark­ings to show to which di­vi­sions they were as­signed. On pur­port­ed over­pric­ing at the Ve­hi­cle Main­te­nance Cor­po­ra­tion (VM­COTT), Ewats­ki said it was up to all stake­hold­ers to ful­fil their re­spon­si­bil­i­ties. Rent­ing ve­hi­cles would con­tin­ue, he said, but there would be ef­forts to de­crease the costs. He added: "I will nev­er say that there is no need to rent a ve­hi­cle. That will be un­re­al­is­tic. But we may have to re­duce the cost. "The vast ma­jor­i­ty of our ve­hi­cles are bought but the oth­ers are rent­ed."