Richard Lord

A week af­ter promis­ing to work with the Par­lia­ment to ad­dress the al­leged eth­nic im­bal­ances in the Po­lice Ser­vice, chair­man of the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion Nizam Mo­hammed has been sum­moned to the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent for a face-to-face meet­ing to­day. Mo­hammed's re­marks have an­gered many na­tion­als, in­clud­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley, who have both con­demned Mo­hammed. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said on Wednes­day that Pres­i­dent Richards was seek­ing le­gal as­sis­tance on the is­sue of re­vok­ing Mo­hammed's ap­point­ment. Sources say that ad­vice was re­ceived yes­ter­day. Con­tact­ed for com­ment yes­ter­day, Mo­hammed said he re­ceived a call from the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent yes­ter­day ask­ing him to be present at the said lo­ca­tion for a meet­ing with the Pres­i­dent.

Mo­hammed, a for­mer Speak­er of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, said he was not told what was on the meet­ing's agen­da. "I am go­ing with an open mind...I don't know what the meet­ing is all about," he said in an in­ter­view. "I am not afraid...I have done no wrong." Up to late yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, Mo­hammed was at his bar­ber be­ing groomed for to­day's meet­ing. Asked if he was ex­pect­ing his ap­point­ment to be re­voked dur­ing the met­ing, Mo­hammed re­peat­ed: "I have no idea what the meet­ing is about but I am go­ing." Sources say to­day's meet­ing is ex­pect­ed to pro­vide an av­enue for Mo­hammed to clar­i­fy his state­ment. Sources al­so say that Mo­hammed must be giv­en a hear­ing be­fore any ac­tion could be tak­en against him.

But oth­er sources are say­ing that the Pres­i­dent has no grounds to re­voke Mo­hammed's ap­point­ment.

Two days ago, Mo­hammed said he was not about to re­sign his job and was prepar­ing in­stead to con­tin­ue his work at the com­mis­sion. He said he met with the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Dwayne Gibbs and ACP Fitzroy Fred­er­icks, who were crit­i­cal of his ini­tial state­ment. He said they now have a bet­ter ap­pre­ci­a­tion for what he said ini­tial­ly. The for­mer Speak­er con­tin­ues to draw crit­i­cism for his state­ment. Yes­ter­day, Sport and Youth Af­fairs Min­is­ter, Anil Roberts said Mo­hammed "went over­board with emo­tions" in his re­marks. Roberts and Mo­hammed are mem­bers of the Con­gress of the Peo­ple, a mem­ber of the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment.

Roberts, who spoke at yes­ter­day's post-Cab­i­net news con­fer­ence at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre, St Ann's, said Mo­hammed should "apol­o­gise and move for­ward."

He added: "It is clear that Mr Mo­hammed, no mat­ter how well-in­ten­tioned he may have been, he can­not re­al­ly ad­dress the is­sues in front of him." Roberts al­so re­spond­ed to Mo­hammed de­ci­sion not to re­sign, de­spite pub­lic crit­i­cism by Per­sad-Bisses­sar. He said: "Mr Mo­hammed is a big man, he knows what he has to do."

Roberts said the Cab­i­net was unit­ed in its po­si­tion against any move to di­vide the coun­try on the ba­sis of race. He said: "We have no in­ter­est in defin­ing any cit­i­zen by race, we move on mer­i­toc­ra­cy, if you're good, you're good (and) if you're bad, you're bad. End of sto­ry." Roberts lat­er said if the Pres­i­dent did not re­voke Mo­hammed's ap­point­ment, the PP Gov­ern­ment would abide by the law.