The Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC) says it will in­ves­ti­gate the dis­crep­an­cies be­tween state­ments made by Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Dwayne Gibbs and Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Roger Gas­pard, SC, over a bribery probe in­volv­ing Works and In­fra­struc­ture Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er. The an­nounce­ment was made yes­ter­day, through a press re­lease from the PSC's Pub­lic Ed­u­ca­tion Sec­tion. De­spite re­veal­ing the PSC's plan to in­ves­ti­gate the po­lice po­si­tion, the re­lease main­tained the de­ci­sion to close an in­ves­ti­ga­tion was with­in the pre­rog­a­tive of the po­lice and not the com­mis­sion. The re­lease stat­ed it was the role of the com­mis­sion to "mon­i­tor the ef­fi­cien­cy and ef­fec­tive­ness of the dis­charge of the func­tions of the Com­mis­sion­er and Deputy Com­mis­sion­ers of Po­lice. "In this re­gard this mat­ter would be viewed against the back­drop of the gen­er­al ef­fi­cien­cy and ef­fec­tive­ness of the com­mis­sion­er and deputy com­mis­sion­ers in man­ag­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions of al­leged of­fences," the com­mis­sion said.

The re­lease said the is­sue would form part of the per­for­mance ap­praisals for the Po­lice Ser­vice's ex­ec­u­tive. In June last year, Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley wrote to the com­mis­sion com­plain­ing about the "dila­to­ry pace" of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion, which was be­ing con­duct­ed by In­sp To­taram Dook­ie. Row­ley's let­ter was then re­ferred to Com­mis­sion­er Gibbs. In a let­ter to the com­mis­sion, dat­ed March 21, Gibbs said that "on the ad­vice of the DPP, no fur­ther ac­tion can be tak­en in this mat­ter." Gas­pard lat­er de­nied Gibbs' state­ment, while say­ing he told po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tions should be con­tin­ued in the con­text of the Cus­toms and Ex­cise Act.

Gas­pard was quot­ed as say­ing any­one who sug­gest­ed he had ad­vised the po­lice that no fur­ther ac­tion could be tak­en in the mat­ter was ei­ther "mis-stat­ing or er­ro­neous­ly con­vey­ing to the me­dia my sen­ti­ments." The crim­i­nal al­le­ga­tions were first raised af­ter a meet­ing on May 10 last year, be­tween for­mer FI­FA pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Mo­hamed bin Ham­mam and of­fi­cials of var­i­ous Caribbean foot­ball as­so­ci­a­tions. The meet­ing, which was al­leged­ly or­gan­ised by FI­FA vice-pres­i­dent Warn­er, dur­ing his tenure as pres­i­dent of CON­CA­CAF and CFU, was held at the Hy­att Re­gency Ho­tel, Wright­son Road, Port-of-Spain. Af­ter the meet­ing sev­er­al of­fi­cials who had at­tend­ed al­leged ap­prox­i­mate­ly US$1 mil­lion was dis­trib­uted to them in en­velopes. Warn­er re­signed from all in­ter­na­tion­al foot­ball du­ties in June last year amid a FI­FA in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the al­le­ga­tion, while bin Ham­mam was banned for life by FI­FA's Ethics Com­mit­tee.