Suzanne Shep­pard

From the very be­gin­ning, Nizam Mo­hammed's eight-month tenure as chair­man of the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC) was shroud­ed in con­tro­ver­sy.Even be­fore he and oth­er mem­bers of the PSC were sworn in by act­ing Pres­i­dent Roger Hamel Smith last Ju­ly 21.Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley was among those who raised ob­jec­tions to the ap­point­ment, ex­press­ing con­cern that Mo­hammed's in­de­pen­dence could not be guar­an­teed since he was an ac­tive politi­cian.In con­firm­ing the ap­point­ment, how­ev­er, Hamel-Smith, stat­ed in a me­dia re­lease he had sought the opin­ion of se­nior coun­sel, In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors and oth­ers.

"In the cir­cum­stances I have in my own dis­cre­tion, pur­suant to sec­tion 122(6) of the Con­sti­tu­tion ap­point­ed Mr Nizam Mo­hammed as the chair­man of the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion."The chair­man and the mem­bers of the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion, who will be serv­ing for a pe­ri­od of three years as from Ju­ly 21, 2010, have tak­en the oath of of­fice and no­tice of their ap­point­ments have been pub­lished in the Gazette," the re­lease added.The House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives ap­proved the nom­i­na­tions of the Mo­hammed and the oth­er PSC mem­bers. How­ev­er, the Op­po­si­tion vot­ed against the nom­i­na­tion of Mo­hammed.

Months lat­er, Mo­hammed be­came em­broiled in a ma­jor con­tro­ver­sy that cast a shad­ow over his en­tire tenure at the helm of the PSC. On De­cem­ber 2, 1010, he had a con­fronta­tion with two po­lice of­fi­cers on traf­fic du­ties in down­town Port-of- Spain.Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, at around 12.40 pm, WPC Mar­lene Git­tens and PC Sean Bat­son were di­rect­ing traf­fic at the cor­ner of Hen­ry Street and In­de­pen­dence Square. The of­fi­cers, who were in po­lice uni­form, were di­rect­ing three lanes of traf­fic, one of which was pro­ceed­ing on­to Hen­ry Street, head­ing north, while the oth­er two lanes were pro­ceed­ing east, the re­ports added

Ac­cord­ing to a state­ment by the of­fi­cers, a black KIA Sportage SUV was pro­ceed­ing on the cen­tre lane and at­tempt­ed to turn un­to Hen­ry Street. The state­ment added Git­tens sig­nalled to the dri­ver to pro­ceed east, but the dri­ver stopped the ve­hi­cle and iden­ti­fied him­self as Nizam Mo­hammed, chair­man of the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion.Mo­hammed told the of­fi­cers he want­ed to go up Hen­ry Street be­cause his of­fice was lo­cat­ed on Queen Street but Git­tens told Mo­hammed he had to con­tin­ue east along In­de­pen­dence Square, it added.Git­tens stat­ed that Mo­hammed sub­se­quent­ly dis­obeyed her in­struc­tions and drove off on­to Hen­ry Street.

She stat­ed she and Bat­son pur­sued Mo­hammed's ve­hi­cle, on foot, and caught up with it as it got stuck in traf­fic.It was stat­ed Mo­hammed was or­dered to pull his ve­hi­cle to the side of the road and asked to pro­duce his dri­ver's per­mit and in­sur­ance cer­tifi­cate.He hand­ed over his dri­ver's per­mit and in­sur­ance and rolled up his win­dow. He then made a call on his cell­phone and lat­er re­port­ed­ly told Git­tens that "the com­mis­sion­er" was on the phone and he wished to speak with her, the re­port said.It added Git­tens told Mo­hammed she could not take the call since she was per­form­ing traf­fic du­ties. The of­fi­cers record­ed in­for­ma­tion from Mo­hammed's dri­ving doc­u­ments and he was al­lowed to leave.

How­ev­er, it added, even be­fore the of­fi­cers re­turned to the Cen­tral Po­lice Sta­tion on St Vin­cent Street, Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Jack Ewats­ki had sent a tele­phone mes­sage to the sta­tion, re­quest­ing a re­port on the in­ci­dent­Git­tens and Bat­son, who each have four years ser­vice, lat­er filed a re­port on the in­ci­dent in which they rec­om­mend­ed that Mo­hammed be charged with fail­ing to com­ply with a law­ful in­struc­tion and caus­ing an un­nec­es­sary ob­struc­tion.In Jan­u­ary, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Brigadier John Sandy, in a state­ment to Par­lia­ment, said the in­ci­dent had been in­ves­ti­gat­ed by Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Dwayne Gibbs and the case was closed.He said Gibbs found the in­ci­dent had been caused by a mis­un­der­stand­ing and he de­cid­ed to take no ac­tion against any of the par­ties in­volved.How­ev­er, while Com­mis­sion­er Gibbs closed the case, the mat­ter did not end there.The group, Fix­in T&T, led by Kirk Wait­he, em­barked on a cam­paign call­ing for Mo­hammed's res­ig­na­tion.

Over sev­er­al months, the group sent pe­ti­tions to Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards and put out print and elec­tron­ic ads call­ing for the re­moval of Mo­hammed as head of the PSC.That is­sue was still on the boil on March 25 when Mo­hammed added to the con­tro­ver­sy al­ready sur­round­ing him. He told a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee of Par­lia­ment ex­am­in­ing the op­er­a­tions of the PSC that 50 per cent of the pop­u­la­tion were of East In­di­an de­scent, yet the ex­ec­u­tive of the Po­lice Ser­vice did not re­flect the com­po­si­tion of T&T mul­ti-eth­nic so­ci­ety.Three of Mo­hammed's fel­low com­mis­sion­ers-at­tor­ney Mar­tin George, Ken­neth Park­er and Jacque­line Cheese­man-im­me­di­ate­ly dis­tanced them­selves, say­ing they did not agree with his po­si­tion.

Mo­hammed said: "Fifty per cent of this coun­try are peo­ple of East In­di­an ori­gin and you are ask­ing them to sup­port the Po­lice Ser­vice. They have to pro­vide the Po­lice Ser­vice with in­for­ma­tion."They have to feel pro­tect­ed by the Po­lice Ser­vice and when they see the hi­er­ar­chy of the Po­lice Ser­vice is as im­bal­anced as is re­flect­ed in these fig­ures, and the chair­man of the com­mis­sion in­tends to tack­le these things, you un­der­stand why the guns are be­ing aimed at me."But I have a job to do and this is what I in­tend to do. I in­tend to ad­dress this with the help of the Par­lia­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go. We need the pro­tec­tion."

Mo­hammed added: "It's ei­ther we are here to car­ry out our oath of ser­vice in the man­ner in which we took our oath. We have to take our oath se­ri­ous­ly and han­dle these mat­ters in a very dis­pas­sion­ate kind of way." Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley were among the many pub­lic fig­ures who con­demned that state­ment.Yes­ter­day, af­ter more than a week of fierce pub­lic de­bate over his state­ment, dur­ing which he re­sist­ed sev­er­al calls for his res­ig­na­tion, Mo­hammed's ap­point­ment was re­voked by Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards.