In the first six weeks of 2025, the coun­try has wit­nessed a unique con­flu­ence of events that chal­lenge the cred­i­bil­i­ty of pub­lic poli­cies, in­sti­tu­tions, process­es, and per­son­al­i­ties.

We are in a “State of Emer­gency” which has not man­aged to stem the flow of vi­o­lent crime it was im­ple­ment­ed to pre­vent. A prime min­is­ter-des­ig­nate has been se­lect­ed by the in­cum­bent with­out a ro­bust com­pet­i­tive process.

Last week, the Privy Coun­cil re­leased its writ­ten judg­ment on the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al mat­ter which sug­gests an ill-con­ceived over­reach by the ex­ec­u­tive.

Fi­nal­ly, we wit­nessed the ques­tion­ing, de­ten­tion and ar­rest of the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice.

While there has been some re­duc­tion in the mur­der rate, a 44 per cent de­cline is not what the coun­try wants. Cit­i­zens are not in­ter­est­ed in how many have been de­tained or that some guns have been re­cov­ered. It wants to know that the mur­der de­tec­tion rate is in­creased, the routes through which guns en­ter the coun­try are closed, and those re­spon­si­ble for the il­le­gal im­por­ta­tion of guns and vi­o­lent crime are be­hind bars.

Al­though wel­come, the mere recita­tion of a per­cent­age re­duc­tion is not the pub­lic’s de­f­i­n­i­tion of suc­cess. What are the Gov­ern­ment’s pol­i­cy mea­sures to ad­dress the so­cial con­di­tions that in­cu­bate crim­i­nals, and how suc­cess­ful are these poli­cies? Has the Gov­ern­ment ad­dressed the award­ing of con­tracts to com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers, which fu­els gang ri­val­ry?

The writ­ten judg­ment by the Privy Coun­cil re­leased on Jan­u­ary 28 re­gard­ing Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert's at­tempt to pre­vent the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s chal­lenge to the Cab­i­net-or­dered in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to her han­dling of the 2023 pub­lic ac­counts au­dit sig­nals ex­ec­u­tive over­reach. There can be lit­tle doubt that the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s dis­claimer of opin­ion on the rev­enue col­lec­tion sys­tem rais­es se­ri­ous mat­ters of pub­lic con­cern that war­rant fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tion and dis­clo­sure.

The Au­di­tor Gen­er­al is a mes­sen­ger em­pow­ered by S116 (6) to de­liv­er un­com­fort­able mes­sages with­out in­ter­fer­ence from the ex­ec­u­tive. The re­al ques­tion has not been an­swered. Has all the in­for­ma­tion nec­es­sary for the au­di­tor to ver­i­fy the rec­on­cil­i­a­tion been pro­vid­ed to the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al?

Last week, in a sud­den move, Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher was ar­rest­ed in con­nec­tion with on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the il­le­gal pro­cure­ment of firearms that may con­sti­tute mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice.

When a leader is un­ex­pect­ed­ly placed in a com­pro­mis­ing sit­u­a­tion, es­pe­cial­ly dur­ing a State of Emer­gency, it cre­ates sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges for the morale, or­gan­i­sa­tion­al dis­ci­pline, and di­rec­tion of the TTPS.

The CoP's con­tract ends in a few months, and her ar­rest, re­lease, and the on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions make her reap­point­ment un­like­ly, if not im­pos­si­ble.

Will the en­su­ing com­pe­ti­tion for the po­si­tion fur­ther desta­bilise morale and co­op­er­a­tion at the lead­er­ship lev­el?

DCP Suzette Mar­tin, who heads the de­part­ment charged with the in­ves­ti­ga­tion of Com­mis­sion­er Hare­wood-Christo­pher, has faced her own is­sues pub­licly.

She has been charged with dan­ger­ous dri­ving fol­low­ing an in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty. The DCP plead­ed not guilty, and the DPP filed a no­tice of dis­con­tin­u­ance on De­cem­ber 16.

DCP Mar­tin was one of three of­fi­cers in­volved in the ar­rest of Brent Thomas in Bar­ba­dos. Jus­tice Devin­dra Ram­per­sad was very crit­i­cal of DCP Mar­tin and the oth­er of­fi­cers in his judg­ment de­liv­ered in late April 2023.

These are ear­ly days, and in the run-up to the gen­er­al elec­tion, the at­mos­phere will be more charged. To para­phrase Ham­let, all is not well in the state of Den­mark.