Richard Lord

Three mem­bers of the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion yes­ter­day dis­tanced them­selves from com­ments at­trib­uted to for­mer chair­man Nizam Mo­hammed and wished him well in the fu­ture.Mo­hammed's ap­point­ment was re­voked by Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards yes­ter­day, less than ten months in­to his three-year con­tract, fol­low­ing his con­tro­ver­sial state­ment to deal with the eth­nic im­bal­ance in the Po­lice Ser­vice at a meet­ing in Par­lia­ment on March 25.The mem­bers - Mar­tin George, Jacque­line Cheesman and Ken­neth Park­er - spoke at a news con­fer­ence at the Mar­riott Ho­tel, Port-of-Spain.

Ab­sent was com­mis­sion­er Ad­di­son Khan.The three said that they were not part of any plot against Mo­hammed.They al­so said the mat­ter of the eth­nic im­bal­ance in the Po­lice Ser­vice was nev­er dis­cussed by the PSC.They said the first time the mat­ter was raised was dur­ing the March 25 PSC meet­ing with the Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee (JSC) in Par­lia­ment.George said none of the com­mis­sion­ers had been to the of­fice since that meet­ing. He not­ed a let­ter sent by them to Mo­hammed had ap­peared in the press.

"To­day we see skewed sta­tis­tics and con­fi­den­tial in­for­ma­tion of the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion, in­clud­ing dis­tort­ed at­ten­dance records ap­pear­ing mys­te­ri­ous­ly in the me­dia, again, all de­signed to cre­ate a cer­tain im­pres­sion," George added. He said the re­lease of PSC's con­fi­den­tial doc­u­ments and in­for­ma­tion was "a source of tremen­dous con­cern to us all."He said the staff at the com­mis­sion, in­clud­ing com­mis­sion­ers, con­tin­ue to ex­tend an olive branch to Mo­hammed.He said the PSC must treat all sec­tors and in­ter­est groups with dig­ni­ty, re­spect and sen­si­tiv­i­ty. George said the com­mis­sion­ers wished Mo­hammed "on­ly the very best in his fu­ture en­deav­ours."

Chess­man said the work of the com­mis­sion would con­tin­ue as a meet­ing was sched­uled to take place on Thurs­day. She said there were many is­sues to be ad­dressed with­in a spec­i­fied dead­line and the com­mis­sion was ea­ger to en­sure that those mat­ters were ad­dressed.Park­er said there was no di­vi­sion among mem­bers of the PSC.He added: "There might have been dif­fer­ences of opin­ion, which is nor­mal and healthy with­in the com­mis­sion as it stands. The fact that Mr Khan is not here is not a re­flec­tion of that."He said the pres­ence of the three was "to re­ject an ac­cu­sa­tion that was made against the three."

George said the is­sue of eth­nic im­bal­ance in the po­lice ser­vice must be ad­dressed "but we must be guid­ed by what is our re­mit and our con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly de­fined du­ty." He said: "That's where we were forced at the Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee meet­ing to part ways with out for­mer chair­man."He said the is­sue of eth­nic im­bal­ance was raised as "a pro­posed agen­da item" for a PSC meet­ing.George said he didn't at­tend that meet­ing but raised some crit­i­cal is­sues in an e-mail sent to oth­er com­mis­sion­ers who agreed "with my views on how the mat­ter should be looked at, if at all."He said the work of the com­mis­sion was "not be­ing stymied" be­cause of the eth­nic im­bal­ance con­tro­ver­sy.