Geisha Kow­lessar

Di­rec­tor of Per­son­nel Ad­min­is­tra­tion (DPA) Glo­ria Ed­wards-Joseph said it was the "sud­den de­par­ture" of for­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er Dwayne Gibbs and deputy po­lice com­mis­sion­er Jack Ewats­ki which led to the de­lay in the se­lec­tion process for a top cop. Ed­wards-Joseph and mem­bers of the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion ap­peared be­fore a par­lia­men­tary joint se­lect com­mit­tee yes­ter­day to ac­count for sev­er­al mat­ters.

Chair­ing the pro­ceed­ings was Sen­a­tor Sub­has Ramkhelawan who called for tighter mea­sures to en­sure the se­lec­tion process was more ef­fec­tive. Ed­wards-Joseph, how­ev­er, said she was hope­ful the process could be com­plet­ed in the next three to four months once all the funds were re­leased.

She said the process was ex­pect­ed to cost $4 mil­lion but on­ly half the funds had been re­leased. Dis­cus­sions with the Min­istry of Fi­nance, she said, had al­ready be­gun for the ad­di­tion­al fund­ing. "I en­gaged Nipdec to do the process for me and once I sign off–be­cause I got com­mu­ni­ca­tion with them on Thurs­day–then they would pro­ceed to do the ten­der," she said.

"Once Nipdec is en­gaged, we are hop­ing to have Nipdec run through the time frame with­in a three-month frame­work, bear­ing in mind they must fol­low the leg­is­la­tion, we should have the process com­plet­ed in March/April. "The com­mis­sion ex­tend­ed the com­mis­sion­er up to the end of June and I would hope that the ap­point­ment can be made in time so that we do not have to do any fur­ther ex­ten­sion."

She said the same process used in 2009 would be used again. This en­tailed a short­list of can­di­dates and in­ter­views con­duct­ed by the com­mis­sion. Ed­wards-Joseph said, "If the three-year con­tract of Mr Gibbs and Mr Ewats­ki had come to an end in a nor­mal way, the com­mis­sion would have been able to an­tic­i­pate six months or nine months pri­or to the ter­mi­na­tion of that con­tract com­ing to an end, and start the process."

Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter Rodger Samuel al­so lev­elled his share of crit­i­cism, say­ing there was a lack of "proac­tive­ness" on the part of the com­mis­sion. "My con­cern is one of the rea­sons giv­en is it is a sud­den res­ig­na­tion, when death like­wise is sud­den, and what do we do when sud­den­ness comes? Are we pre­pared for it?" Samuel asked.