SHAR­LENE RAM­PER­SAD

Po­lice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent In­spec­tor Gideon Dick­son says the ab­sence of a sub­stan­tive Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er has left the ca­reers of al­most 2,800 po­lice of­fi­cers in lim­bo.

The of­fice of Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er has been va­cant since Oc­to­ber 14, when Jus­tice Na­dia Kan­ga­loo de­clared the ap­point­ment of Gary Grif­fith as act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice null and void. Deputy Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob was act­ing in the po­si­tion while Grif­fith was on leave in the weeks be­fore Jus­tice Kan­ga­loo’s rul­ing. His ap­point­ment was al­so void­ed and he re­turned to his po­si­tion as DCP.

But with­out even an act­ing Com­mis­sion­er Dick­son yes­ter­day told Guardian Me­dia hun­dreds of of­fi­cers can­not be pro­mot­ed. And with no Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC) in place, there is no time­line for the ap­point­ment of a com­mis­sion­er ei­ther.

“Present­ly, we are in a very pre­car­i­ous po­si­tion. That is to say, based on the strate­gic op­er­a­tion of the or­gan­i­sa­tion, pro­mo­tion from the rank of cor­po­ral to sergeant was sup­posed to take place from Oc­to­ber 1 this year, where we have 496 el­i­gi­ble of­fi­cers for 217 va­can­cies, that has been placed on the shelf,” Dick­son said.

He said of­fi­cers have been prepar­ing since mid-year to go through the fi­nal stage of the pro­mo­tion process. Dick­son said there are 2,223 con­sta­bles who are el­i­gi­ble to be pro­mot­ed to the rank of cor­po­ral and 680 va­cant po­si­tions wait­ing to be filled.

“We had the is­sue rolling in­to this pe­ri­od where the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty was re­spon­si­ble for ap­point­ing some­one to sit on the board. That re­quest would have been made in and around Ju­ly/Au­gust of this year and the min­istry on­ly ap­point­ed that per­son last week Mon­day, so now we are in readi­ness, but there is no Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice. The sum to­tal of that is that you have ap­prox­i­mate­ly 2,800 of­fi­cers that are af­fect­ed on the op­er­a­tional lev­el and that is not a very good place to be at this time,” Dick­son said.

He said an act­ing com­mis­sion­er would have been able to ap­prove the ap­point­ments and called on those in au­thor­i­ty to get their act to­geth­er.

“We are call­ing to the au­thor­i­ties to rise to the oc­ca­sion and do what is re­quired for us to have at least an act­ing Com­mis­sion­er ap­point­ed while the process for the se­lec­tion of a Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice plays out it­self,” he said.

Dick­son al­so spoke on the is­sue of morale, say­ing of­fi­cers need to be com­mend­ed for their ef­forts to keep the coun­try safe while still work­ing on 2013 salaries.

“That ex­trin­sic val­ue in which salary could as­sist of­fi­cers in terms of meet­ing their day to day re­spon­si­bil­i­ties, cou­pled with the fact that in­fla­tion con­tin­ues to rise and that we are al­most three trimesters out in re­la­tion to salary, it has placed po­lice of­fi­cers’ morale in some­what of a pre­car­i­ous po­si­tion and it is one that could be ad­dressed, the au­thor­i­ties just have to be will­ing to ad­dress it and un­der­stand the im­por­tance of what the of­fi­cers bring to the ta­ble.”

He said cit­i­zens need to al­so un­der­stand the val­ue of po­lice of­fi­cers, as many of­fi­cers are frus­trat­ed with the in­sti­tu­tion­al woes of the TTPS. He ac­knowl­edged there was room for im­prove­ment among the ranks but once again called on au­thor­i­ties to step up and fix those anom­alies.

“We have al­so re­alised that our work­load con­tin­ues to in­crease and our leave has been re­strict­ed, so you must com­mend of­fi­cers in this pe­ri­od in our his­to­ry for their ded­i­ca­tion and com­mit­ment to du­ty be­cause it is on­ly so much they would be able to con­tin­ue in this vein,” he said.

Dick­son said the con­tro­ver­sy over the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion and its se­lec­tion of a com­mis­sion­er has im­pact­ed great­ly on of­fi­cers, not­ing the mat­ter has tak­en on the air of a gen­er­al elec­tion cam­paign, in­clud­ing the li­bel and slan­der on so­cial me­dia plat­forms of po­ten­tial can­di­dates.

“The as­so­ci­a­tion has no is­sue with per­sons sup­port­ing who they want to be­come the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice but every­thing must be done with­in the con­text of the law. To hide be­hind so­cial me­dia and to hide be­hind sup­port­ing groups and mak­ing reck­less and de­mor­al­is­ing state­ments that are at­tack­ing the char­ac­ter and ca­reer of of­fi­cers, we are say­ing that must stop,” Dick­son said.

He said if any­one has cred­i­ble in­for­ma­tion about any of­fi­cer’s wrong­do­ing, he or she should make a re­port to the rel­e­vant bod­ies as­signed to in­ves­ti­gate of­fi­cers. He said there is a crim­i­nal el­e­ment to these cy­ber at­tacks.

“To be go­ing be­hind so­cial me­dia and de­fam­ing of­fi­cers’ char­ac­ters, we are al­so see­ing it bor­der­ing on crim­i­nal li­bel and al­so car­ries a hefti­er penal­ty and the as­so­ci­a­tion will be sup­port­ing our mem­bers who have fall­en prey to this kind of at­tack and present­ly we are seek­ing coun­sel to ad­dress these mat­ters in the short­est pos­si­ble time.”

He said when these of­fi­cers are at­tacked on so­cial me­dia, they can­not speak out in their own de­fence.

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed act­ing Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young for a re­sponse to Dick­son’s state­ments but there was no re­sponse to mes­sages sent to Young up un­til press time.