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Wednesday, May 28, 2025

PSC, top cop in talks today on crime

by

20140108

Act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Stephen Williams has been sum­moned to a meet­ing with the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC) to­day to ex­plain the re­cent spike in mur­ders and the strate­gies he in­tends to im­ple­ment in the fight against this type of crime and crim­i­nal­i­ty. This is ac­cord­ing to a re­lease yes­ter­day by the PSC. The meet­ing takes place from 11.30 am at the com­mis­sion's of­fices, cor­ner Churchill-Roo­sevelt High­way and Pasea Main Road, Tu­na­puna.

Williams was sum­moned in the wake of an un­prece­dent­ed 20 mur­ders with­in the first sev­en days of the year. The com­mis­sion said yes­ter­day it "views very se­ri­ous­ly mat­ters of pub­lic safe­ty and the du­ty of those re­spon­si­ble for it." To­day's meet­ing was orig­i­nal­ly sched­uled to re­view Williams' per­for­mance and he was not ex­pect­ed to at­tend. A source close to the com­mis­sion said yes­ter­day his at­ten­dance had be­come nec­es­sary be­cause of pub­lic con­cern about the crime sit­u­a­tion.

There has been pub­lic dis­qui­et about the spate of mur­ders and Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar called a spe­cial meet­ing of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil on Tues­day to ad­vise mem­bers, in­clud­ing Williams and Chief of De­fence Staff Ma­jor Gen Ken­rick Ma­haraj, that she was no longer pre­pared for any fail­ure to main­tain peace. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she had made clear to each mem­ber of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil that they would be held per­son­al­ly ac­count­able for any fur­ther such fail­ure.

Williams said pre­vi­ous­ly that any suc­cess­ful crime fight re­quired the sup­port of all cit­i­zens and oth­er in­sti­tu­tions as the po­lice alone could not fight crime. Williams, who was the Deputy Com­mis­sion­er in 2012, was el­e­vat­ed to the act­ing po­si­tion on Au­gust 7 af­ter the sud­den res­ig­na­tions of Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Dwayne Gibbs and Deputy Com­mis­sion­er Jack Ewats­ki, both Cana­di­ans. He was giv­en a sec­ond six-month ex­ten­sion from Jan­u­ary last year and a third from Ju­ly. His cur­rent term ends on Jan­u­ary 31.

The PSC is al­so ex­pect­ed to for­mu­late its strate­gic plan for 2014 and be­yond and look at the ex­ist­ing sys­tem of ap­point­ment of a com­mis­sion­er and two deputy com­mis­sion­ers dur­ing to­day's meet­ing. Sources told the T&T Guardian that Williams was most like­ly to be giv­en an­oth­er six-month ex­ten­sion.

They added that al­though there have been a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of mur­ders in the first week of the new year, it is like­ly that Williams may have per­formed cred­itably in oth­er ar­eas and his per­for­mance was be­ing as­sessed in those ar­eas as well. To­day's meet­ing al­so will re­view the ex­ist­ing arrange­ment for the se­lec­tion of top po­lice of­fi­cers. A Cab­i­net-ap­point­ed com­mit­tee, chaired by De­osaran, had been ad­dress­ing the is­sue last year but work was halt­ed pend­ing the ap­point­ment of a new com­mis­sion.

The com­mis­sion, which is chaired by Prof Ramesh De­osaran, was not op­er­a­tional from Ju­ly to No­vem­ber last year as the term of all the com­mis­sion­ers, ex­cept De­osaran, had ex­pired. A new com­mis­sion was ap­point­ed with two new mem­bers – ar­chi­tect/plan­ner and for­mer In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor Dr James Arm­strong and at­tor­ney Roa­mar Achat- Saney – while at­tor­neys Ad­di­son Khan and Mar­tin George were reap­point­ed.

De­osaran's three-year term, which be­gan in 2011, ex­pires in April. For­mer head of the pub­lic ser­vice Regi­nald Du­mas had threat­ened le­gal ac­tion against the Par­lia­ment for ap­prov­ing Arm­strong and Achat-Saney, two of Pres­i­dent An­tho­ny Car­mona's nom­i­nees, as mem­bers of the PSC.

Du­mas is claim­ing they do not meet the con­sti­tu­tion­al re­quire­ment for mem­ber­ship as com­mis­sion­ers. The Con­sti­tu­tion says com­mis­sion­ers must be "qual­i­fied and ex­pe­ri­enced in the dis­ci­plines of law, fi­nance, so­ci­ol­o­gy or man­age­ment." Du­mas is con­tend­ing that while Achat- Saney is an at­tor­ney, Ad­di­son Khan and Mar­tin George are al­so at­tor­neys, while none of the new com­mis­sion­ers ap­pear to be ex­perts in fi­nance or man­age­ment. The new PSC mem­bers be­gan work last month.


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