Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

For­mer chair­man of the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion Dr Maria Therese Gomes is call­ing for re­form with­in the com­mis­sion fol­low­ing the im­broglio in­volv­ing the sus­pen­sion of Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (CoP) Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher.

She em­pha­sised the need for changes to en­hance the com­mis­sion’s op­er­a­tions.

Dr Gomes, who re­placed Prof Ramesh De­osaran at the helm of the or­gan­i­sa­tion in 2015, told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day that the lat­est de­vel­op­ment ex­posed what she said were cracks with­in the sys­tem.

“It is a ter­ri­ble sit­u­a­tion, and it is a very sad day for us as women as well be­cause Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher is the first fe­male com­mis­sion­er, and I was the first fe­male chair­man of the com­mis­sion. As a for­mer chair, what I recog­nised when I was there is that the com­mis­sion re­al­ly has its hands tied and is some­what im­po­tent in do­ing its work be­cause of the amend­ments made to sec­tion 123 of the Con­sti­tu­tion.” 

The main pur­pose of the amend­ment to the Con­sti­tu­tion was to trans­fer most of the pow­ers of the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion to the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, ex­cept the pow­er to ap­point, dis­ci­pline and re­move the com­mis­sion­er and deputy com­mis­sion­er of po­lice.

This bill al­so con­ferred on the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice the con­trol and man­age­ment of the Po­lice Ser­vice and oth­er re­lat­ed pow­ers.

The Pub­lic Ser­vice Ap­peal Board con­tin­ues to serve as the ap­pel­late body against a de­ci­sion of the com­mis­sion and com­mis­sion­er in dis­ci­pli­nary pro­ceed­ings.

Last week, Hare­wood-Christo­pher was de­tained and sub­se­quent­ly re­leased in con­nec­tion with the im­por­ta­tion of two sniper ri­fles for the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency.

At­tor­neys rep­re­sent­ing Hare­wood-Christo­pher had writ­ten to the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion head­ed by Dr Wen­dell Wal­lace, call­ing for the with­draw­al of her sus­pen­sion.

Dr Gomes al­so stat­ed that the cur­rent in­car­na­tion of the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion has its hands tied on cer­tain mat­ters, and ur­gent ac­tion is need­ed to en­sure trans­paren­cy.

“He (Wal­lace) has to tread care­ful­ly and try to move away all the weeds and see the re­al is­sues you have to deal with; don’t let them flus­ter you, and the com­mis­sion needs to meet and dis­cuss this. They need to come up with ways to cor­rect this for the fu­ture. It is an op­por­tu­ni­ty for the com­mis­sion to straight­en out their sys­tems.”

She added, “One of the things I recog­nised was how can you do a prop­er eval­u­a­tion of their per­for­mance if you don’t know what is hap­pen­ing in the en­tire ser­vice. When I was there, in try­ing to un­der­stand what was hap­pen­ing, I had the com­mis­sion­er and the deputies in the of­fice, and they would have had to present doc­u­ments to show what they were do­ing.”

Dr Gomes not­ed that the cur­rent fall­out has the po­ten­tial to im­pact the morale of staff with­in the po­lice ser­vice and en­cour­aged po­lice of­fi­cers not to be daunt­ed by the de­vel­op­ment.