Gail Alexan­der

Hu­man Re­sources and in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions ex­pert Court­ney Mc­Nish was on Fri­day ap­proved by Par­lia­ment as a mem­ber of the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC).

The PSC is re­spon­si­ble for over­see­ing ap­point­ment of the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er (CoP)a nd deputy CoPs and for as­sess­ing their per­for­mance. The PSC is al­so a tri­bunal for dis­ci­pli­nary mat­ters re­gard­ing oth­er T&T Po­lice Ser­vice mem­bers.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, who de­tailed Mc­Nish’s lengthy list of qual­i­fi­ca­tions, said, "We be­lieve Mr Mc­Nish is qual­i­fied to hold this post. He’s broad­ly ex­pe­ri­enced and high­ly qual­i­fied in very many ar­eas suit­able for ap­point­ment to this job.

“This cit­i­zen, like many oth­ers, chose to put aside self and em­brace ser­vice to the wider na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty, es­pe­cial­ly at this time when peo­ple who en­ter pub­lic are­nas are sub­ject to all kinds of vil­li­fi­ca­tion and ridicule for no good rea­son oth­er than spite, mal­ice and ha­tred. Many peo­ple qual­i­fied like him shy away from pub­lic ser­vice.”

Row­ley said when peo­ple agree to serve, “...We a grate­ful na­tion should say thanks.”

Mc­Nish holds diplo­mas in HR and IR fields. He al­so has a BA de­gree from Lon­don Uni­ver­si­ty, plus a Mas­ters’ de­gree in law. He holds ex­pe­ri­ence in strate­gic and tac­ti­cal HR work, labour sec­tor norms, con­tract ne­go­ti­a­tions, dis­pute ar­bi­tra­tion and in­dus­tri­al court ad­vo­ca­cy.

A for­mer SWW­TU branch of­fi­cial, he was IR man­ag­er at the Air­ports Au­thor­i­ty of T&T, and HR man­ag­er at Carib Brew­ery. He was al­so group HR man­ag­er at Trinidad Ce­ment Ltd. Mc­Nish joined Caribbean Air­lines in 2008 as a HR vice-pres­i­dent and now has his own firm in Ch­agua­nas.

UNC MP Rudy In­dars­ingh, who said the Op­po­si­tion sup­port­ed the ap­point­ment, said he hoped Mc­Nish’s ex­per­tise would as­sist the TTPS’ ef­fec­tive­ness and or­gan­i­sa­tion­al re­form. He called for Mc­Nish to ad­vise on per­for­mance ap­prisals for the CoP and deputy CoPs and for his ex­per­tise to be used to fill va­can­cies, con­firm deputy com­mis­sion­ers and guide com­pen­sa­tion on the ba­sis of per­for­mance ap­prisal.