To­day's Ed­i­to­r­i­al

?The cir­cum­stances that have led to a fourth ex­ten­sion of the term of of­fice of James Philbert as Act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice are quite re­gret­table.

The fact that the coun­try's chief law en­force­ment of­fi­cer should be put in this sit­u­a­tion is a sad com­men­tary on our po­lit­i­cal ad­min­is­tra­tors and the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC). It sug­gests an ab­sence of ef­fec­tive plan­ning and co­or­di­na­tion with re­spect to one of the most vi­tal po­si­tions in the na­tion­al ap­pa­ra­tus. In­deed, it seems to in­di­cate dif­fi­dence and ap­a­thy by the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties with re­spect to a cru­cial as­sign­ment. It does noth­ing for the cam­paign against crime and for the sta­bil­i­ty of the po­lice ser­vice and the coun­try, in gen­er­al, to have such an un­ten­able state of af­fairs in the up­per stra­tum of our pro­tec­tive struc­ture. None of this, of course, is a slur on Mr Philbert, who must be com­mend­ed for his du­ty to his na­tion and his will­ing­ness to serve a term that has been re­peat­ed­ly ex­tend­ed.

We thank him for avail­ing him­self to head the po­lice ser­vice while the pow­ers-that-be strug­gle to re­solve an un­seem­ly state of af­fairs. The re­al­i­ty is that Mr Philbert was asked to pro­vide fur­ther na­tion­al ser­vice be­cause or­der­ly tran­si­tion arrange­ments were not put in place. It is of lit­tle com­fort–not to men­tion, whol­ly disin­gen­u­ous–to point to the fact that the coun­try was in a gen­er­al elec­tion set­ting in the run-up to the ex­piry of Mr Philbert's third ex­tend­ed term of of­fice. Sure­ly, in dis­solv­ing Par­lia­ment and tak­ing the na­tion to the polls, the then-po­lit­i­cal ad­min­is­tra­tors would have been aware that the po­lice chief was near­ing the end of his third stint of "ex­tra" time. In­stalling a Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice in a coun­try with an ac­knowl­edged crime prob­lem ought to have been a pri­or­i­ty item be­fore par­lia­men­tary af­fairs were halt­ed for two months. Mr Philbert had been asked to re­port to ad­di­tion­al du­ty on the pre­vi­ous three oc­ca­sions as a re­sult of po­lit­i­cal and leg­isla­tive grid­lock and a mea­sure of grand­stand­ing in high of­fice.

This dis­qui­et­ing se­quence of events is still fresh in many peo­ple's minds.

The Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion may well plead not guilty on the is­sue, but we ques­tion the time­li­ness of its of­fi­cial re­port, es­pe­cial­ly con­sid­er­ing the bu­reau­crat­ic hur­dles that must be sur­mount­ed be­fore a let­ter of ap­point­ment can be is­sued. Sure­ly, the PSC was af­ford­ed suf­fi­cient time to du­ti­ful­ly car­ry out its pro­fes­sion­al search. There have been two ex­haus­tive, cost­ly and time-con­sum­ing head-hunt­ing ex­er­cis­es to find a suit­ably qual­i­fied per­son to head our con­stab­u­lary. Yet Trinidad and To­ba­go is still to ben­e­fit from those pro­tract­ed, high-pro­file ex­er­cis­es. Our grouse with re­spect to the tar­di­ness of the au­thor­i­ties is sep­a­rate and apart from our views on the nom­i­na­tion of a for­eign na­tion­al for the po­si­tion which was the sub­ject of an ed­i­to­r­i­al com­ment on Mon­day. We now look for­ward to the au­thor­i­ties be­ing pre­pared to in­stall a new po­lice com­mis­sion­er in time to un­der­take his du­ties from Oc­to­ber 1, the date on which Mr Philbert should be fi­nal­ly able to earn his well-de­served re­tire­ment.

We will be close­ly fol­low­ing the par­lia­men­tary ex­er­cise which be­gins on Fri­day in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives on the se­lec­tion of a suc­ces­sor to the out­go­ing com­mis­sion­er. We hope there is con­sen­sus among stake­hold­ers, but, even fail­ing that, there must be no fur­ther hitch­es in the process of re­cruit­ing an of­fi­cer to lead the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice. The log­jam and of­fi­cial lethar­gy have com­bined for too long to de­rail the pro­ce­dure, to the detri­ment of a po­lice unit that is anx­ious­ly look­ing for­ward to lead­er­ship and a na­tion that sore­ly wants an end to the scourge of crime.