RYAN BA­CHOO

ryan.ba­choo@cnc3.co.tt

Out­go­ing Pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes has ad­mit­ted the con­tro­ver­sy that gripped the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion over the Cop Mer­it List in 2021 was the most chal­leng­ing of her term in of­fice.

How­ev­er, in an ex­clu­sive in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, mere days be­fore she demits of­fice, Weekes main­tained she han­dled the sit­u­a­tion as best as she could.

The con­tro­ver­sy stemmed from Weekes’ de­ci­sion to with­draw the CoP Or­der of Mer­it List af­ter it was de­liv­ered to her on Au­gust 11, 2021.

The move ul­ti­mate­ly led to Weekes fac­ing an his­tor­i­cal im­peach­ment vote in Par­lia­ment in Oc­to­ber that year. While it was al­ways doomed to fail giv­en the Gov­ern­ment’s ma­jor­i­ty in Par­lia­ment, it was a stain on Weekes’ pres­i­den­cy, and one Her Ex­cel­len­cy ad­mit­ted had an ef­fect on her.

“I had a va­ri­ety of re­ac­tions over the pe­ri­od, from high ir­ri­ta­tion, to im­pa­tience, to re­al­ly hav­ing to bite my tongue and frus­tra­tion at not be­ing able to say all that I could say in the mat­ter,” Pres­i­dent Weekes told Guardian Me­dia from her of­fice at Pres­i­dent’s House, St Ann’s.

Weekes re­mained mum on the mat­ter that hit na­tion­al head­lines through­out 2021, opt­ing to is­sue a state­ment in mid-Oc­to­ber that year in the three na­tion­al news­pa­pers, where she main­tained she in no way act­ed un­con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly in the process to se­lect a new Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er.

Weekes dou­bled down on her stance yes­ter­day, in­sist­ing con­fi­dence in the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent must be had at every lev­el.

She said, “Peo­ple, and not on­ly the man in the street, but peo­ple in high of­fice, have to have con­fi­dence that what comes here re­mains here. So de­spite the many, many temp­ta­tions on this and many oth­er is­sues to speak about what took place and what was said at Pres­i­dent’s House, it is my pol­i­cy that that does not hap­pen.

“It shakes the con­fi­dence of peo­ple, who of­ten need to re­sort to the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent to ex­change ideas or to look for so­lu­tions... At the end of the day, I did what I thought was right and what I had to do and his­to­ry will speak for it­self.”

The con­tro­ver­sy brought the apo­lit­i­cal of­fice in­to dis­re­pute, with the Pres­i­dent caught in a tug-of-war be­tween Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar would take aim at the Pres­i­dent pub­licly dur­ing the course of the con­tro­ver­sy.

De­spite this, Weekes of­fered this as­sess­ment of her re­la­tion­ship with the Op­po­si­tion Leader as she ex­its of­fice, “In the five years of my tenure, I met Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar twice. One at my in­au­gu­ra­tion, when she wel­comed and con­grat­u­lat­ed me, and then the on the oc­ca­sion where I ap­point­ed her Leader of the Op­po­si­tion. On both of those oc­ca­sions, she was noth­ing but pleas­ant and gra­cious and such that the re­la­tion­ship that we have re­mains one of ab­solute cor­dial­i­ty.”

She added that she leaves of­fice with “a very good re­la­tion­ship with the Prime Min­is­ter, but at the end of the day, it’s an en­tire­ly pro­fes­sion­al one.”

Pres­i­dent Weekes ad­mit­ted the state of the coun­try’s po­lit­i­cal sys­tem was turn­ing away peo­ple who would make good pub­lic of­fice hold­ers.

She added, “In hav­ing this of­fice ap­proach many, many per­sons to serve in pub­lic of­fice, have had them de­cline on the grounds that they don’t like, to use their words, the pol­i­tics of the coun­try to­day and they are not pre­pared to serve, so peo­ple will tell you if it were not for the pol­i­tics I would have loved to do ser­vice in this way but giv­en what is go­ing on, I do not wish to serve.”

On Mon­day, Weekes will be suc­ceed­ed by Pres­i­dent-elect Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo when the in­au­gu­ra­tion of T&T’s sev­enth pres­i­dent and sec­ond suc­ces­sive fe­male takes place at the Grand Stand of the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain.

Weekes said such an oc­cur­rence will be­come “par for the course” as the coun­try gets ac­cus­tomed to women in high lead­er­ship po­si­tions.