27 cops promoted on Christmas Eve

Almost a year after some police officers took the Police Service Promotions Advisory Board to court over the failure to promote officers, 27 sergeants were promoted to the rank of inspector yesterday. The promotions, which took place at the Police Administration Building on Edward Street, Port-of-Spain, brought smiles of happiness to the faces of some officers, who said they had worked hard and appreciated the promotions coming before Christmas.

Other officers, who won the right to be promoted after acting Police Commissioner Stephen Williams tried to change the requirements for promotion, would have to wait to be promoted, as there are not enough vacancies in the service. Williams said yesterday that as per the court decision, the police service had completed a revised merit list which gave full marks to all sergeants for the examination component of the promotion assessment.

Williams said the Police Service would put systems in place in 2014 to make sure it had a properly-designed assessment in place to promote sergeants to inspectors. Since 2007, when new regulations came into effect, it was agreed by the service that all sergeants would get the 35 marks for the examination component of the assessment for promotion to inspector. Last year, Williams made a decision to revert to a previous system in which entry-level English was used for the examination.

As a result of this, officers’ placement in the order of merit list was skewed. Officers went to court to challenge this decision and the court held that sergeants should be given the full 35 marks. Williams said other sergeants would be promoted once positions became vacant. Among those promoted was the Police Service public information officer Wayne Mystar.