Geisha Kow­lessar

Pres­i­dent of the Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion In­spec­tor Anand Rame­sar will be ap­ply­ing for the post of po­lice com­mis­sion­er.

Rame­sar, in an in­ter­view yes­ter­day, wel­comed the new process for the ap­point­ment of a po­lice com­mis­sion­er and deputy com­mis­sion­er but main­tained the process must be trans­par­ent and in keep­ing with in­ter­na­tion­al best prac­tices.

Un­der the new process the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion would have to con­tract a lo­cal firm un­der the Cen­tral Ten­ders Board Act to con­duct the re­cruit­ment process, which in­cludes invit­ing ap­pli­ca­tions for the posts.

This is ac­cord­ing to the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and Deputy Com­mis­sion­er (Se­lec­tion Process) Or­der 2015, which was tabled in Par­lia­ment on Mon­day by Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Ed­mund Dil­lon.

Rame­sar said the process was re­cent­ly raised at the as­so­ci­a­tion's cen­tral com­mit­tee and gen­er­al coun­cil meet­ings. He said the mem­ber­ship was in sup­port of the Gov­ern­ment's de­ci­sion to se­cure a lo­cal firm to car­ry out the se­lec­tion process.

"We al­so sup­port the de­ci­sion of the Gov­ern­ment in re­la­tion to lim­it­ing the can­di­dates to be a na­tion­al of T&T.

"We will be watch­ing very close­ly to en­sure the se­lec­tion is not be­ing car­ried out by a fly-by-night or­gan­i­sa­tion or an or­gan­i­sa­tion for all in­tents and pur­pos­es would ap­pear to have been set up over the last cou­ple of months then we see its ser­vices are be­ing se­cured to car­ry out the se­lec­tion," Rame­sar said.

He urged that the firm car­ry­ing out the process must be ex­pe­ri­enced and have a strong rep­u­ta­tion and backed by ap­pro­pri­ate pro­fes­sion­als to car­ry out the task, adding that any­thing short of that would raise se­ri­ous con­cerns for the Po­lice Ser­vice.

On the vast dif­fer­ence with the new pro­pos­al, Rame­sar said the is­sue re­lat­ing to the re­duc­tion of years was an ini­tia­tive wel­comed by the as­so­ci­a­tion, adding that this paved the way for more mem­bers to ap­ply.

"In our mem­ber­ship there are per­sons who are very com­pe­tent to ap­ply and be se­lect­ed for the po­si­tion of com­mis­sion­er of po­lice not with­stand­ing they may be young in their ser­vice in that they are in the ju­nior rank.

"The low­er­ing of the ex­pe­ri­ence re­quire­ment opens the doors for sec­ond di­vi­sion of­fi­cers to ap­ply. There are many po­lice of­fi­cers in the sec­ond di­vi­sion who out­class a lot of the se­nior of­fi­cers by way of qual­i­fi­ca­tion and op­er­a­tional com­pe­tence," Rame­sar added.

He said at the last se­lec­tion process while he was qual­i­fied aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly he was not qual­i­fied by way of tenure.

On act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Stephen Williams' pos­si­bly re­ceiv­ing a sev­enth ex­ten­sion Rame­sar said a care­tak­er for the or­gan­i­sa­tion was need­ed un­til a com­mis­sion­er was ap­point­ed.

"For all in­tent and pur­pos­es he (Williams) is a care­tak­er for the or­gan­i­sa­tion and what­ev­er de­ci­sion is tak­en... whether he is giv­en an ex­ten­sion or not... it falls with­in the re­mit of the com­mis­sion and the com­mis­sion ought to be guid­ed by per­for­mance and if per­for­mance is mea­sured and a de­ci­sion is tak­en in that con­text the as­so­ci­a­tion will sup­port it," Rame­sar added.

What Rame­sar brings

An of­fi­cer with 16 years' ser­vice Rame­sar ex­pressed con­fi­dence that his ap­pli­ca­tion would be favourable.

On what he will bring to the ta­ble that was dif­fer­ent from Williams he said: "I am in touch with every mem­ber of the Po­lice Ser­vice.

"I have been the pres­i­dent of the as­so­ci­a­tion for the past six years. I un­der­stand the chal­lenges as far as per­for­mance is con­cerned. I un­der­stand what the or­gan­i­sa­tion needs both from an HR per­spec­tive, from an op­er­a­tional per­spec­tive and an ad­min­is­tra­tive per­spec­tive.

"I am al­so able to iden­ti­fy the per­sons in the or­gan­i­sa­tion who can func­tion com­pe­tent­ly in spe­cif­ic ar­eas. I am able to bring a big­ger co­he­sion be­tween the first and sec­ond di­vi­sion and will bring a greater fu­sion be­tween tech­nol­o­gy and hu­man re­source," Rame­sar added.

He added that over the past six years he had al­so gained a wealth of ex­pe­ri­ence through in­ter­na­tion­al ex­po­sure.

MORE IN­FO

The Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and Deputy Com­mis­sion­er (Se­lec­tion Process) Or­der 2015 says the firm shall sub­mit a short­list of suit­able can­di­dates for con­sid­er­a­tion.

Un­der the law the Par­lia­ment will seek to ap­prove or re­ject the nom­i­nees.

The Ap­point­ment of a Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and Deputy Com­mis­sion­er (Qual­i­fi­ca­tion and Se­lec­tion Cri­te­ria) Or­der 2015 was al­so laid by Dil­lon.

That or­der says the nom­i­nees must be na­tion­als of T&T and have a de­gree from a recog­nised uni­ver­si­ty in the field of law, crim­i­nal jus­tice, crim­i­nol­o­gy, po­lice ser­vice man­age­ment or oth­er rel­e­vant de­gree.

It says the can­di­date for CoP must have at least 15 years ser­vice of in­creas­ing re­spon­si­bil­i­ty in law en­force­ment and the can­di­dates for deputy com­mis­sion­er must have ten years ser­vice in the same area.

The Par­lia­ment will sub­se­quent­ly have to ap­prove the nom­i­nees and the ap­point­ments made by the Pres­i­dent.