Richard Lord

Chair­man of the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion Nizam Mo­hammed says he is not about to re­sign in the wake of pub­lic calls for him to do so. "I am not go­ing any­where...The work of the com­mis­sion con­tin­ues and I in­tend to car­ry on with my work," he said. Mo­hammed broke his si­lence dur­ing an in­ter­view with the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day, 24-hours af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said his fu­ture would be de­ter­mined by Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards. Both Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley met sep­a­rate­ly with Pres­i­dent Richards on Tues­day in the wake of Mo­hammed con­tro­ver­sial state­ment about an eth­nic im­bal­ance in the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar in­sist­ed that Mo­hammed was reck­less and was seek­ing to di­vide the na­tion by his re­marks. But Mo­hammed said he did not share that view. He sug­gest­ed that his crit­ics should ask the chair­man of the Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee of Par­lia­ment (JSC) if he was be­ing reck­less, adding that he would not have been al­lowed to be reck­less at such a meet­ing. He said: "I was not reck­less and ir­re­spon­si­ble," as was be­ing claimed by the PM. Mo­hammed said he got a copy of Hansard (of­fi­cial record of what he said) and he can­not see how he was be­ing reck­less. He said he had not seen the news­pa­per re­ports of the meet­ing.

"I can­not see how peo­ple could con­clude that I was reck­less af­ter read­ing my com­ments," he added.

Mo­hammed said the con­tro­ver­sy had not af­fect­ed the op­er­a­tions of the com­mis­sion "in the least."

He said if yes­ter­day was not a pub­lic hol­i­day, the com­mis­sion would have met, but the next meet­ing was like­ly to be set for next week. Mo­hammed said on Mon­day he met with Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Dwayne Gibbs and ACP Fitzroy Fred­er­icks. Ac­cord­ing to the for­mer House Speak­er, the meet­ing was "warm and cor­dial." He said the mat­ter was dis­cussed and "they ful­ly un­der­stood my con­cerns...The meet­ing was held with­out any mal­ice to any­one." Row­ley, who had ob­ject­ed to Mo­hammed's ap­point­ment, said he was con­fi­dent that Pres­i­dent Richards would act and re­voke the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion chair­man's ap­point­ment.

Con­tro­ver­sy brews

Fri­day, March 25: Mo­hammed rais­es the is­sue of eth­nic im­bal­ance in the hi­er­ar­chy of the Po­lice Ser­vice at a meet­ing with the Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee. Sun­day March 26: ACP Fitzroy Fred­er­icks con­demns Mo­hammed for his com­ment, say­ing he should be re­moved as Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion chair­man; Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Dwayne Gibbs said he did not agree with Mo­hammed's claim that the com­po­si­tion of the Po­lice Ser­vice did not re­flect the so­ci­ety.

Sun­day March 27: For­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj crit­i­cis­es Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar for not tak­ing im­me­di­ate ac­tion to have Mo­hammed's ap­point­ment re­voked. Mon­day March 28: Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is­sues a state­ment de­scrib­ing Mo­hammed state­ment as reck­less and di­vi­sive. She said it did not rep­re­sent the view of her Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment. Tues­day March 29: Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards meets sep­a­rate­ly with Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar told re­porters that Mo­hammed's fu­ture was in the hands of Pres­i­dent Richards, while Row­ley said af­ter the meet­ing that he was con­fi­dent the Pres­i­dent would re­voke Mo­hammed's ap­point­ment for his ir­re­spon­si­ble be­hav­iour in of­fice. Wednes­day March 30 (yes­ter­day): Mo­hammed, in his first pub­lic com­ment on the con­tro­ver­sy, said he was not about to re­sign. He said the work of the com­mis­sion con­tin­ues. He said he could not un­der­stand how peo­ple could claim that he was be­ing reck­less. He said he met with the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and ACP Fitzroy Fred­er­icks and "they ful­ly un­der­stand."