For­mer mem­ber of the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion and for­mer chair­man of Crime Stop­pers T&T Mar­tin George be­lieves the Prime Min­is­ter’s plan to pay cops in pro­posed vet­ted units high­er wages is a recipe for dis­as­ter.

De­liv­er­ing the fea­ture ad­dress at a Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) po­lit­i­cal meet­ing at Har­ris Prom­e­nade in San Fer­nan­do on Sat­ur­day night, Prime Min­ster Dr Kei­th Row­ley re­vealed plans to cre­ate spe­cial­ly vet­ted units with­in the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) to in­ves­ti­gate cor­rupt po­lice of­fi­cers and gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials. He said these of­fi­cers would re­ceive high­er wages for their spe­cial­ist func­tions and for main­tain­ing their in­tegri­ty.

How­ev­er, in a state­ment yes­ter­day, George said it was a good idea on pa­per but can have the op­po­site ef­fect in prac­tice.

“It ac­tu­al­ly can be a recipe for dis­as­ter and cre­ate a rich and fe­cuned feed­ing ground for even greater cor­rup­tion with­in the ser­vice.

“With per­sons seek­ing to doc­tor the books, to fix the records to jock­ey for po­si­tions with­in this sup­posed spe­cialised unit be­cause your mo­ti­va­tion then is mon­ey.”

George said, “The prob­lem has been that when you look at it over the years, it’s not mon­ey that mo­ti­vates good and ded­i­cat­ed per­sons to do their jobs. The fact is, of course, yes, they need their salary, but the point is pay­ing more isn’t what makes you a ded­i­cat­ed ca­reer civ­il ser­vant or a ded­i­cat­ed ca­reer po­lice of­fi­cer.”

He said it was a per­son’s sense of du­ty that mo­ti­vates them to do right and be a good per­son.

“You think back over the years when we had school teach­ers, school prin­ci­pals ... I re­mem­ber there was one in Ma­son Hall Pri­ma­ry School in par­tic­u­lar, prin­ci­pals who had a ded­i­ca­tion and love for their stu­dents who were mo­ti­vat­ed by that fac­tor and who want­ed to see that suc­cess in their stu­dents,” he said.

“It’s not mon­ey that mo­ti­vat­ed these peo­ple.”

George said this was al­so re­alised through his ex­pe­ri­ence at Crime Stop­pers. He said they re­alised that it was not the re­ward that mo­ti­vat­ed peo­ple to pro­vide tips but rather their sense of du­ty and need to do the right thing.

“We un­der­stand and em­pathise with the chal­lenges faced in deal­ing with na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and deal­ing with the crime prob­lem in Trinidad and To­ba­go as a whole, but cer­tain­ly a sug­ges­tion such as this is go­ing to cre­ate such a di­vi­sion and so much con­ster­na­tion with­in the Po­lice Ser­vice it­self that it doesn’t re­al­ly ap­pear to be the best thought out idea, with the great­est re­spect,” he said.

George, who is al­so the head of the To­ba­go Busi­ness Cham­ber, said the group and its mem­bers will con­tin­ue to sup­port the Gov­ern­ment in its ef­forts to com­bat crime.

The Op­po­si­tion Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) has al­ready con­demned the move to cre­ate vet­ted units.

Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, on Sun­day, de­scribed the pro­pos­al as un­con­sti­tu­tion­al and un­de­mo­c­ra­t­ic.