Cana­di­an-born Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Dwayne Gibbs and his com­pa­tri­ot Deputy Com­mis­sion­er Jack Ewats­ki have re­signed with more than a year of their three-year con­tracts re­main­ing. Their res­ig­na­tion let­ters were dat­ed Ju­ly 26, 2012 and they take ef­fect on Au­gust 7. The Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion is to ap­point act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and act­ing Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice. Sources say cur­rent Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Stephen Williams will act as Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced their res­ig­na­tions fol­low­ing a spe­cial Cab­i­net meet­ing yes­ter­day at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre, St Ann's. It came fol­low­ing open ex­pres­sions of dis­sat­is­fac­tion by Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er with Gibbs' 21 cen­tu­ry polic­ing sys­tem. The Sun­day Guardian re­port­ed at the week­end Gibbs and Ewats­ki would be axed.

In her five-minute state­ment last night, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the Gov­ern­ment was com­mit­ted to win­ning the war against crime in T&T. She said new Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er would an­nounced el­e­ments of a new plan next month which would in­clude ma­jor pol­i­cy shifts in the fight against crime in T&T. Af­ter thank­ing Gibbs and Ewats­ki for their ser­vice to the na­tion, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said: "All nec­es­sary re­sources will be placed at the dis­pos­al of those re­posed with the au­thor­i­ty and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of get­ting the job done quick­ly and ef­fec­tive­ly." She said there could be noth­ing more im­por­tant than guar­an­tee­ing the na­tion's safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty. "We are of the view that there is no room for fail­ure nor pa­tience for ex­cus­es but an abun­dance of grat­i­tude await those who would be­come the he­roes of our na­tion's most bit­ter war on crime," she said on na­tion­al tele­vi­sion. She added: "No mea­sure will be spared against those who seek to ter­rorise and bru­talise our el­der­ly folk, our women, our chil­dren and our men. "The na­tion­al out­rage has reached the stage where every­one agrees that stronger and more ag­gres­sive ini­tia­tives are re­quired. "We must chan­nel this sense of out­rage in­to an army of re­sis­tance in­volv­ing every law-abid­ing cit­i­zen."

Per­sad-Bisses­sar in­sist­ed:?"Ours is the du­ty of hard ac­tion to be tak­en against those who wish to threat­en pub­lic safe­ty at any lev­el and we will deal with them with the full force of the law." She said the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil had "iden­ti­fied sev­er­al ma­jor shifts in pol­i­cy and pro­grammes as the Gov­ern­ment moves to ar­rest the is­sue of crime as our num­ber one pri­or­i­ty." Many Cab­i­net Min­is­ters, in­clud­ing Warn­er and act­ing At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Gan­ga Singh, were in the au­di­ence for the PM's state­ment.

Lat­er as they de­part­ed Warn­er said: "The Prime Min­is­ter has said enough."