KEVON FELMINE

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley says his Gov­ern­ment is ea­ger to fill the va­cant post of Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, but ad­mit­ted yes­ter­day that he had no idea whose names are on the mer­it list.

Speak­ing to jour­nal­ists at the rib­bon-cut­ting cer­e­mo­ny to launch PriceS­mart’s Sus­tain­able So­lu­tions Plant at the Point Lisas Busi­ness Park, Row­ley said no can­di­date was a shoo-in for the po­si­tion, as Par­lia­ment must de­cide who gets the post.

“Even as you are talk­ing to­day about Fri­day in Par­lia­ment, I have not seen the mer­it list. I do not know who is on the list. All I do know is that a rec­om­men­da­tion has been made. It came to the Par­lia­ment from Pres­i­dent’s House, and we are go­ing to deal with that rec­om­men­da­tion on Fri­day, and it is not a fore­gone con­clu­sion. I ex­pect the Par­lia­ment to act re­spon­si­bly,” Row­ley said.

De­spite for­mer Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith call­ing the se­lec­tion process flawed, Row­ley said this Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion took its time se­lect­ing nom­i­nees, adding he be­lieves the sys­tem is work­ing. He said if the names pre­sent­ed to the Par­lia­ment are un­sat­is­fac­to­ry, it will re­vert to the list as they did on the pre­vi­ous oc­ca­sion.

“Which is what hap­pened the last time, as far as my mem­o­ry serves, be­cause we start­ed with one per­son. There was a de­bate. Then there was an­oth­er per­son, there was a de­bate, so it all de­pends on how it goes through the Par­lia­ment, and let me say for the fi­nal time, hope­ful­ly, I don’t see or get in­volved in the mer­it list.”

Al­though act­ing CoP Ear­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher, who is re­port­ed to have topped the mer­it list, is due for re­tire­ment in May, Row­ley said the po­si­tion is a con­tract­ed one that is not af­fect­ed by age.

On ques­tions over whether the re­sump­tion of ex­plo­ration and pro­duc­tion in Venezuela’s Drag­on Gas Field and PriceS­mart’s di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion in­to man­u­fac­tur­ing were signs of an eco­nom­ic turn­around, Row­ley said it shows po­ten­tial.

He said strength­en­ing the en­er­gy sec­tor and down­stream pro­duc­tion can on­ly be good for T&T. He said many av­enues be­sides the Drag­on Gas Field could ben­e­fit the econ­o­my and the pop­u­la­tion.

“These things are not to­day for to­day, or to­day for tonight. Even if we dis­cov­er a field in our own bor­der, it will take a lit­tle while to bring it to mar­ket, but the im­por­tant thing is that we got our hand on it, and that is what we should be hap­py about.”