Asha Javeed

The hor­net's nest raised by Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC) chair­man Nizam Mo­hammed last week, when he said the eth­nic com­po­si­tion of the po­lice force is not re­flec­tive of T&T's mul­ti-eth­nic so­ci­ety, wasn't the first time the is­sue was raised.Sim­i­lar find­ings were doc­u­ment­ed in a 19-year-old study com­mis­sioned by the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go, co-au­thored by Pro­fes­sor Sel­wyn Ryan and Dr John Le Guerre, ti­tled Em­ploy­ment Prac­tices in the Pub­lic and Pri­vate Sec­tors in Trinidad and To­ba­go.The in­ves­ti­ga­tion, which was un­der­tak­en in 1992 when the Cen­tre for Eth­nic Stud­ies was es­tab­lished at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, lends cre­dence to Mo­hammed's state­ments.

The study was pre­sent­ed to then prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning on No­vem­ber 5, 1993.Prof Ryan ad­mit­ted that de­spite the age of the study, it was still "very rel­e­vant" and ap­plic­a­ble giv­en the present state of af­fairs in the Po­lice Ser­vice."Hav­ing done it (the re­port), we would have as­sumed that steps would have been tak­en to im­ple­ment the rec­om­men­da­tions but the sta­tus quo has re­mained the same," he told the Sun­day Guardian.Nine days ago, Mo­hammed told Par­lia­ment's Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee (JSC) that at the su­per­in­ten­dent lev­el of the Po­lice Ser­vice, there are 21 of­fi­cers of African ori­gin and ten of East In­di­an ori­gin.

Mo­hammed in­ter­pret­ed those fig­ures to be that there aren't enough East In­di­ans in the up­per ech­e­lons of the Po­lice Ser­vice.From an­oth­er per­spec­tive, his sta­tis­tics al­so point to an in­crease in the num­ber of In­do-Trinida­di­ans em­brac­ing the Po­lice Ser­vice af­ter they were vir­tu­al­ly non-ex­is­tent dur­ing the colo­nial times.Tra­di­tion­al­ly, In­do-Trinida­di­ans pur­sued com­merce and agri­cul­ture. Their for­ay in­to pub­lic ser­vice was in the ar­eas of health, nurs­ing and doc­tor­ing, or to the teach­ing ser­vice.For­mer act­ing com­mis­sion­er of po­lice James Philbert had not­ed that at $240 a month, polic­ing wasn't an at­trac­tive job propo­si­tion. A point raised by the Le Guerre/Ryan re­port.

The re­port, which quot­ed a for­mer chair­man of the Pub­lic Ser­vices, states: "They looked up­on it as a low-pay­ing job with low pres­tige in their com­mu­ni­ty. He al­so agreed that colo­nial of­fi­cials felt that In­do-Trinida­di­ans did not mea­sure up to the phys­i­cal re­quire­ments of the Po­lice Force (as it was then) and were of­ten dis­qual­i­fied on the ba­sis of height. But above all, they were dis­qual­i­fied on char­ac­ter in­ad­e­qua­cies-and in the be­lief that 'a Hin­du would not ar­rest a Hin­du.'"

Calls to dis­man­tlePro­mo­tions and Ad­vi­so­ry Board

The for­mer chair­man ob­served that since In­de­pen­dence, in­creas­ing num­bers of In­do-Trinida­di­ans were ac­cept­ed in­to the Po­lice Ser­vice but shared the view that they did not take their ca­reers se­ri­ous­ly.

"This view was al­so shared by con­tem­po­rary Afro-Trinida­di­an po­lice of­fi­cers-par­tic­u­lar­ly those in­volved in train­ing. Their col­lec­tive re­marks are well summed up by the re­mark of one such of­fi­cer that 'In­do-Trinida­di­ans are more prone than Afro-Trinida­di­ans to find the rig­or­ous train­ing to be irk­some and to walk away from the job.'"An­oth­er for­mer train­ing of­fi­cer al­so re­marked that, "The In­do-Trinida­di­ans do not have the rhythm to per­form well at march­ing."The In­do-Trinida­di­ans, it was said, marched bet­ter to tas­sa drums. This begs the ques­tion, as to whose stan­dards are be­ing used since there are ob­vi­ous cul­tur­al dif­fer­ences which in­form tra­di­tions of mil­i­tary march­es.

Fur­ther, in 1992, there was a rec­om­men­da­tion to have the Pro­mo­tions an­dAd­vi­so­ry Board dis­man­tled.

It still func­tions. Ac­cord­ing to the Po­lice Ser­vice Act 2006, the board must com­prise the DCP, the As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, the Hu­man Re­sources Di­rec­tor of the Po­lice Ser­vice, a se­nior of­fi­cer who is not a po­lice of­fi­cer, from the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty se­lect­ed by the Min­is­ter and an in­de­pen­dent man­age­ment con­sul­tant, ap­point­ed by the Com­mis­sion­er."Re­cruit­ment to the Po­lice Ser­vice has been com­ment­ed up­on. The Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion has del­e­gat­ed this func­tion to the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice. Some mem­bers of the Com­mis­sion ap­pear to have lost faith in the pro­ce­dures ap­plied un­der this del­e­gat­ed method. "Nepo­tism is said to be rife in the Po­lice Ser­vice. Se­nior of­fi­cers seem to be able to in­flu­ence the re­cruit­ment process," the re­port stat­ed.

Eth­nic break­down

In 1980, the pop­u­la­tion per­cent­age of In­do-Trinida­di­ans was 40.7 per cent.The num­ber of In­do-Trinida­di­ans in the Po­lice Ser­vice was 14.1 per cent of the to­tal force.Giv­en equal rep­re­sen­ta­tion, the study ob­served that the ex­pect­ed ra­tio in the po­lice force in 1980 should be 40.7 per cent.

"In­do-Trinida­di­ans, at this time, were gross­ly un­der-rep­re­sent­ed in the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice."In 1992, the In­do-Trinidad pop­u­la­tion was 39.6 per cent.The num­ber of In­do-Trinida­di­ans in the Po­lice Ser­vice was 1,153 out of a to­tal of 4,672, which was 24.6 per cent. "There­fore, all things be­ing equal, the ex­pect­ed per­cent­age in the Po­lice Ser­vice is 39.6. Nine­teen hun­dred and nine­ty-two re­veals a pos­si­ble sig­nif­i­cant trend to­wards an in­crease in the In­do-Trinida­di­an rep­re­sen­ta­tion in the Po­lice Ser­vice," the re­port stat­ed.

In­di­ans in Pub­lic Ser­vice

Be­yond the Po­lice Ser­vice, In­do-Trinida­di­ans did not ap­ply for em­ploy­ment in the Pub­lic Ser­vice."It was claimed that they were more dis­posed to busi­ness and agri­cul­ture. When they did start to ap­ply, the com­pet­i­tive ex­am­i­na­tions tend­ed to sift them out as many were un­able to pass the Eng­lish tests in par­tic­u­lar," the re­port not­ed.But it al­so ex­pressed a con­cern that, "In Trinidad and To­ba­go con­trol of the arms of the state is in­dica­tive of a far wider scope of in­flu­ence than that mea­sured by wages and perks earned from di­rect em­ploy­ment in the state sec­tor."

This per­spec­tive was al­so shared by Se­nior Coun­sel Is­rael Khan last week: "Most of all, the found­ing prin­ci­ples of our na­tion, state, in­ter alia, that there should be op­por­tu­ni­ty for ad­vance­ment on recog­ni­tion of mer­it, abil­i­ty and in­tegri­ty, and all per­sons may, to the ex­tent of their ca­pac­i­ty play some part in the in­sti­tu­tions of the na­tion­al life and thus de­vel­op and main­tain due re­spect for law­ful con­sti­tut­ed au­thor­i­ty."And yet, there is a stark im­bal­ance in the eth­nic com­po­si­tion of the armed forces of this coun­try.

"In a mul­tira­cial coun­try such as ours, the armed forces should re­flect our cos­mopoli­tan na­ture. If they do not, then this would be a recipe for dis­as­ter in the hands of a per­son with dic­ta­to­r­i­al am­bi­tions. It hap­pened in Rwan­da, Ugan­da, Fi­ji and oth­er coun­tries. And down the road it could hap­pen here in sweet T&T."Thus, it is of para­mount im­por­tance to as­cer­tain why the armed forces (the Army, Coast Guard and Po­lice) are de­void of a sig­nif­i­cant mem­ber­ship of cit­i­zens of East In­di­an eth­nic­i­ty," said Khan.

The Le Guerre/Ryan re­port stat­ed that "per­cep­tions of dis­crim­i­na­tion do ex­ist, are strong­ly felt and ma­te­ri­al­ly af­fect the ded­i­ca­tion and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty of a num­ber of of­fi­cers from both eth­nic groups though In­di­ans ap­pear more ag­griev­ed than Afro-Trinida­di­ans."It was found that in a num­ber of cas­es what was per­ceived as 'racial dis­crim­i­na­tion' was in fact the end re­sult of a num­ber of fac­tors such as pa­tron­age, fam­i­ly net­work or mem­ber­ship of a clique.

"It be­came clear, too, that in sit­u­a­tions where the cri­te­ria on which pro­mo­tions or act­ing ap­point­ments were made were am­bigu­ous, there was a ten­den­cy to­wards spec­u­la­tion that glid­ed eas­i­ly in­to charges and counter-charges of dis­crim­i­na­tion," it ob­served with re­gard to pro­mo­tions."It was al­so strik­ing that cer­tain sec­tions of the Pub­lic Ser­vices were re­gard­ed as the pre­serves of one group or the oth­er. Com­pe­ti­tion for such

The da­ta pre­sent­ed shows the trends which have de­vel­ope­d­dur­ing the last 22 years in the post-In­de­pen­dence Po­lice Ser­vice of T&T. Da­ta on Eth­nic Com­po­si­tion of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice.

De­cem­ber 31, 1970

Po­si­tions Afro-Trinida­di­ans In­do-Trinida­di­an

CoP 1

DCP 1

ACP 4 1

S/SUPT 5

SUPT 17

ASP 32 1

In­sp 71 1

SGT 143 6

To­tal 274 9

Note: Of a to­tal of 149 sergeants on­ly six were In­do-Trinida­di­an in 1970. In terms of age, In­do-Trinida­di­ans tend­ed to be younger than their Afro-Trinida­di­an coun­ter­parts.

Jan­u­ary 1, 1980

Po­si­tions Afro-Trinida­di­ans In­do-Trinida­di­an

CoP 1

DCP 4

ACP 8 1

S/SUPT 8

SUPT 24

ASP 46 1

In­sp 104 7

SGT 222 22

CPL 212 41

CON­ST 471 108

To­tal 1102 180

Sep­tem­ber 14, 1992

Po­si­tions Afro-Trinida­di­ans In­do-Trinida­di­an

CoP 1

DCP 2 1

ACP 7

S/SUPT 10

SUPT 17 2

ASP 41 6

IN­SP 97 11

SGT 239 43

CPL 589 144

CON­ST 2,516 946

To­tal 3,519 1,153

To this end, the rec­om­men­da­tions were made in the re­port.

Some of them in­clude:

• A pos­i­tive at­tempt should be made to en­sure a mea­sure of racial bal­ance on all in­ter­view pan­els in the Pub­lic Ser­vice, Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tions and in the Pub­lic En­ter­pris­es Sec­tor.

• While it is recog­nised that the high­er ech­e­lons of the Pub­lic Ser­vice should be re­spon­sive to the po­lit­i­cal will, ur­gent con­sid­er­a­tion should be giv­en to en­sur­ing that in ex­er­cis­ing the Prime Min­is­te­r­i­al ve­to due at­ten­tion is giv­en to the eth­nic com­po­si­tion of so­ci­ety.

• Con­sid­er­a­tion should be giv­en to the prin­ci­ple of eth­nic bal­ance in the ap­point­ment of Chair­man and oth­er mem­bers of the Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion.

• In or­der to fa­cil­i­tate mon­i­tor­ing the over­all de­vel­op­ment of the Pub­lic Ser­vices in re­la­tion to eth­nic­i­ty, it is rec­om­mend­ed that the records of in­di­vid­ual agen­cies should in­clude da­ta on gen­der and race, in­so­far as they re­late to ap­point­ments, pro­mo­tions and oth­er awards.

• Rea­sons should be giv­en for all ap­point­ments and pro­mo­tions by the Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion.