Mar­tin George

It is high time that we, as a na­tion, put a stop to this tom­fool­ery in the se­lec­tion process for a po­lice com­mis­sion­er, be­cause while we are dither­ing and tit­ter­ing and fid­dling like the prover­bial Nero, Rome is, in­deed, burn­ing, as the crimes and mur­ders con­tin­ue un­abat­ed. The en­tire way that we ap­proach this process is flawed, and if the ef­fect of the present pro­ce­dure was to in­su­late the Of­fice of the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice from po­lit­i­cal in­flu­ence or sway, our his­to­ry has shown this to be far from the case. Po­lit­i­cal in­flu­ence has clear­ly played a role in the past, as with the ex­er­cise of the pow­er of ve­to. There can be an ef­fec­tive sidelin­ing of in­de­pen­dent choic­es in suc­ces­sion, un­til the favoured one is se­lect­ed, or you just keep grant­i­ng ex­ten­sions to a favoured in­cum­bent, and there­by keep him in the job.

src="http://guardian.co.tt/files/Mar­tin George lo­go.png" alt="lo­go" class="right"/>We al­so have to move away from this idea of ap­point­ing po­lice com­mis­sion­ers who are long in the tooth and in the evening of their years, as we have seen this to re­sult in the past in some tooth­less bull­dogs and in oth­er cas­es just some tired old dogs who are just mark­ing time and wait­ing it out un­til re­tire­ment for their gold­en hand­shake. We need an en­er­getic, vi­brant per­son who can com­mand the re­spect of the forces, while hav­ing that dy­namism, fore­sight and in­tel­lect to lead in a pro­fes­sion­al, pro-ac­tive man­ner, and we bloody well don't need Penn State Uni­ver­si­ty to be goug­ing us at $4 mil­lion a pop to tell us whom we should or should not have as a Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er.

It is not on­ly high­ly in­sult­ing to our col­lec­tive in­tel­li­gence as a peo­ple, but it is al­so ridicu­lous for any­one to sug­gest that we need Penn State Uni­ver­si­ty–or any oth­er for­eign con­sul­tant–to tell us who our com­mis­sion­er should be. As I have said be­fore in this col­umn, if we don't need Penn State to se­lect our Chief Jus­tice and our At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, then we cer­tain­ly don't need them to help us se­lect a Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er. If it is one thing that we should def­i­nite­ly stop, it is this ob­scene, waste­ful haem­or­rhag­ing of monies to Penn State to tell us some­thing which we could more than fig­ure out for our­selves. I al­so hope that the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion was mis­quot­ed when it was re­port­ed that they could not find a lo­cal firm with the ex­pe­ri­ence to be able to con­duct this screen­ing process, hence the choice of Penn State.

What pop­py­cock! We choose for our­selves can­di­dates for the much more im­por­tant posts of our Prime Min­is­ter and our Pres­i­dent, with­out the help of Penn State, so why all this tom­fool­ery and non­sense about choos­ing a top cop? The crim­i­nals and ban­dits must be lov­ing every minute of this, as they recog­nise that we have had for al­most two years now, a "ten days" Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er, who, to his cred­it, has tried to make some changes dur­ing his time, but who must ob­vi­ous­ly feel ham­strung and not com­fort­ed by the un­cer­tain­ty of his tenure.

We need to think out­side the box a bit, and be a bit more cre­ative in deal­ing with this whole is­sue, as we are al­ready the laugh­ing stock of the Caribbean on this point. We can elect 41 mem­bers of Par­lia­ment; se­lect 31 Sen­a­tors. We can choose an en­tire gov­ern­ment and a full Cab­i­net of min­is­ters, all with­in the space of six to eight weeks, and can't choose a Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er in two years.

Come on, T&T, let's be se­ri­ous now! On the note of be­ing se­ri­ous al­so, it is time that we put a stop to the sub­tle bul­ly­ing or threat­en­ing tac­tics of the Po­lice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion by their re­peat­ed as­ser­tions that they do not want a for­eign­er in the post as top cop. Now, I have al­ways ad­vo­cat­ed the pref­er­ence for lo­cal tal­ent, and will con­tin­ue to do so, and in this sense I would say that we must have tal­ent­ed lo­cals, ei­ther liv­ing here or abroad, who can ad­e­quate­ly and com­pe­tent­ly fill the post of Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er. How­ev­er, at the end of the day, the Po­lice As­so­ci­a­tion can­not just base their ob­jec­tions on the blan­ket po­si­tion that they will not ac­cept any for­eign­er. Trinidad and To­ba­go po­lice­men leave our shores every day, seek­ing em­ploy­ment in oth­er coun­tries and end up in sub­stan­tial po­si­tions and rise quick­ly through the ranks.

Many Caribbean is­lands and po­lice de­part­ments through­out the USA and Cana­da can at­test to this fact, as our po­lice of­fi­cers are wel­comed over­seas with open arms, so we need to stop this ex­treme my­opia and xeno­pho­bia and recog­nise that if it is that the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion has found that the best can­di­date for the job of top cop just so hap­pens to be a for­eign­er, then we have to grow up and be ma­ture and ac­cept that. Oth­er­wise, we might as well not have the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion per­form this func­tion. The idea of de­bat­ing the choice through Par­lia­ment is al­so a long, tor­tu­ous and anachro­nis­tic process, and we must cer­tain­ly change this if we ever get around to any se­ri­ous con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form and give the post of Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­tec­tions and in­su­la­tions from po­lit­i­cal in­flu­ence. This al­so means that the pow­er of ve­to must go. Then, and on­ly then, would we be able to put a stop to this top cop non­sense.