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Monday, August 25, 2025

Jacobs to act as CoP, 2 other nominees as deputies

by

1347 days ago
20211216

An act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er fi­nal­ly.

Af­ter a va­can­cy for some time at the top of the Po­lice Ser­vice, no­ti­fi­ca­tion to ap­point Deputy Com­mis­sion­er Mc­Don­ald Ja­cobs to act as Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice will be de­bat­ed in Par­lia­ment on Fri­day af­ter­noon.

The no­ti­fi­ca­tion re­gard­ing Ja­cobs was sub­mit­ted by the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion re­cent­ly to Pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes

The mo­tion on Par­lia­ment’s agen­da to­day stat­ed that the com­mis­sion is em­pow­ered to ap­point per­sons to hold or act in the of­fice of Com­mis­sion­er and Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice.

Un­der Sec­tion 123 (3) of the Con­sti­tu­tion the com­mis­sion shall sub­mit to the Pres­i­dent a list of the names of the per­sons nom­i­nat­ed for ap­point­ment to the of­fice of Com­mis­sion­er or Deputy Com­mis­sion­er.

Ac­cord­ing to pro­ce­dure, Weekes sub­mit­ted the no­ti­fi­ca­tion for Ja­cobs to Par­lia­ment.

No­ti­fi­ca­tion was al­so sub­mit­ted by the Pres­i­dent in re­spect of the nom­i­na­tion of Ear­la Christo­pher for ap­point­ment to act in the Of­fice of Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice. Christo­pher held the rank of act­ing DCP (Op­er­a­tions)

A third no­ti­fi­ca­tion was sub­mit­ted in re­spect of the nom­i­na­tion of Wen­dell Williams, for ap­point­ment to act in the Of­fice of Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice.Williams held the rank of As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er (Cen­tral In­tel­li­gence).

The no­ti­fi­ca­tions are sub­ject to af­fir­ma­tive res­o­lu­tion of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives; and can be passed by sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty of Gov­ern­ment votes alone.

The no­ti­fi­ca­tions seek to ap­point per­sons to the posts of act­ing CoP and deputies af­ter is­sues con­cern­ing se­lec­tion of a CoP un­der the last com­mis­sion head­ed by Bliss Seep­er­sad.

The con­tract of for­mer com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith end­ed on Au­gust 17.

He was ap­point­ed to act by the last com­mis­sion. A mer­it list was done by that com­mis­sion but with­drawn by Seep­er­sad.

That com­mis­sion col­lapsed in Sep­tem­ber fol­low­ing mem­bers’ dis­agree­ment on send­ing Grif­fith on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave .

An Oc­to­ber court judg­ment ruled that Grif­fith’s act­ing ap­point­ment was null and void.

Ja­cobs was due to act as CoP from Oc­to­ber 15 but that was al­so halt­ed by the judg­ment.

With­out a Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion in place to ap­point a CoP and no act­ing CoP ei­ther, Ja­cobs, a deputy CoP, was named as Ac­count­ing Of­fi­cer for the TTPS and led the force since then.

A new com­mis­sion, head­ed by re­tired jus­tice Ju­dith Jones, was ap­point­ed and a new Le­gal No­tice for se­lec­tion of a CoP and deputy CoP was done by Gov­ern­ment to ad­dress is­sues cit­ed in the judg­ment. The com­mis­sion will have to is­sue ads to re­cruit nom­i­nees for the top posts.

With an act­ing com­mis­sion­er an­tic­i­pat­ed, yes­ter­day Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds told Guardian Me­dia, “The com­mis­sion has heard the cries of the na­tion and un­der­stood the ur­gency of what is need­ed and act­ed in the spir­it of ur­gency–they did what they had to do and the no­ti­fi­ca­tions have come from the Pres­i­dent.”

He added: “These re­cent de­vel­op­ments were not planned, chore­o­graphed or an­tic­i­pat­ed. They were the out­come of cir­cum­stances and it cre­at­ed the void– a gap— in the Of­fice of Com­mis­sion­er.”

“I wel­come the ur­gency with which the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion treat­ed with the mat­ters and it’s that kind of re­sponse from the com­mis­sion which augers very well for the fu­ture of the TTPS. There is much work to be done for which the com­mis­sion has di­rect and sin­gu­lar re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.”

“I want to com­pli­ment Mr Ja­cobs and the en­tire TTPS for stand­ing stout­ly in the gap that oc­curred,” he al­so said

Op­po­si­tion UNC MP Rudy In­dars­ingh at 6 pm yes­ter­day said UNC had to cau­cus on the mat­ter and “Our views will play out on the floor in the de­bate ahead.”

Oth­er UNC MPs al­so couldn’t say how the par­ty would move on the no­ti­fi­ca­tions.

Ja­cobs said re­cent­ly he’d con­sid­er ap­ply­ing for the CoP post.


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