An­na-Lisa Paul

Act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Stephen Williams has promised to re­view the pro­mo­tions sys­tem for First and Sec­ond Di­vi­sion of­fi­cers be­cause of the un­due de­lays in the pro­mo­tion of oth­er of­fi­cers.

Speak­ing at an im­promp­tu cer­e­mo­ny at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, Port-of-Spain, dur­ing which 51 of­fi­cers were pro­mot­ed from sergeant to in­spec­tor, Williams said: "We have spent two years pro­cess­ing pro­mo­tions for one rank and while we have been pro­cess­ing pro­mo­tions for that one rank, we have had to hold off on pro­cess­ing pro­mo­tions for two oth­er ranks.

"At the end of it, we would have spent six years wait­ing for every­one to get a turn at the pro­mo­tion in­ter­view process. It is al­most lu­di­crous, so we need to re­vis­it the pro­mo­tion process, so si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly we can in­ter­view per­sons for the rank of cor­po­ral to sergeant and then to in­spec­tor."

Com­mend­ing the of­fi­cers who were pro­mot­ed, Williams said some mat­ters were still be­ing ad­dressed at the lev­el of the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion. Hence, he ex­plained, there were still a few out­stand­ing po­si­tions to be filled. "It has noth­ing to do with choos­ing to pro­mote some and leav­ing out oth­ers," he said.

Ac­knowl­edg­ing that Tues­day's pro­mo­tion ex­er­cise would bring joy to some and anger to oth­ers, Williams said "The dy­nam­ics around pro­mo­tions is al­ways con­tentious." He said the ex­ist­ing sys­tem needs to change, as he re­vealed that a team from the po­lice ser­vice ex­ec­u­tive and the Po­lice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion had come to­geth­er to de­vel­op rec­om­men­da­tions on how to im­prove the process.

De­liv­er­ing brief re­marks, pres­i­dent of the Po­lice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion Sgt Anand Rame­sar elicit­ed laugh­ter from the au­di­ence when he said: "We are al­ways thank­ful to you when you even­tu­al­ly make the pro­mo­tion, but in the in­ter­im, be­tween the end of the in­ter­view and pro­mo­tion, you are not in our good books due to the de­lay."

Speak­ing on be­half of the new­ly pro­mot­ed of­fi­cers, In­sp Urick Prescott of the West­ern Di­vi­sion thanked God for their good for­tune. "It is long over­due, but bet­ter late than nev­er. I am mind­ful of hun­dreds of sergeants out there wait­ing to be pro­mot­ed and we hope in due course, they can re­ceive that as well," Prescott said.