Melis­sa Doughty

A for­mer chair­man of the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC), at­tor­ney Nizam Mo­hammed, has called for a re­view of the se­lec­tion process used to find a Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice. He said be­cause of the cur­rent length of the se­lec­tion process it was too ear­ly to make a per­ma­nent ap­point­ment of a com­mis­sion­er.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view with the T&T Guardian, Mo­hammed said he was not sur­prised a new CoP had not been cho­sen as yet, since the process was te­dious. Ag CoP Stephen Williams' ap­point­ment ends on Jan­u­ary 31. Williams was ap­point­ed as act­ing com­mis­sion­er for six months af­ter Cana­di­ans Dwayne Gibbs and Jack Ewats­ki re­signed last Au­gust as top cop and deputy com­mis­sion­er re­spec­tive­ly.

Mo­hammed of­fered two sug­ges­tions to im­prove the process. He wants to see an amend­ment to the law so that for­eign­ers will not be el­i­gi­ble to ap­ply for the po­si­tion and sec­ond­ly, he ad­vo­cates the re­place­ment of Penn State Uni­ver­si­ty, in Penn­syl­va­nia, Unit­ed States, as the eval­u­a­tion and se­lec­tion body. He said Penn State should be re­placed with a Cari­com pan­el or one com­prised of lo­cal ex­perts.

Mo­hammed was in agree­ment that Williams' tenure should be ex­tend­ed be­cause he said there was no oth­er op­tion. He said six months was too short a pe­ri­od to choose a new CoP us­ing the cur­rent sys­tem. "I thought by now steps would have been tak­en to re­view the lengthy and ar­du­ous process. There is no doubt that the PSC will be ad­dress­ing the mat­ter in due course be­cause it sim­ply does not make sense," he added.

Mo­hammed, a for­mer Speak­er of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, added the time it took for ad­ver­tis­ing the po­si­tion and for Penn State to re­lease its mer­it list made dif­fi­cult the se­lec­tion of a new com­mis­sion­er with­in the time­frame.

"Then law pro­vides for the ap­point­ment of a con­tract­ed agency to go through this cum­ber­some se­lec­tion process, and even though the PSC, through the di­rec­tor of per­son­nel ad­min­is­tra­tion, may have com­menced the ex­er­cise at the ear­li­est giv­en op­por­tu­ni­ty, a six-month pe­ri­od is too short," Mo­hammed said.