Geisha Kow­lessar

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Mar­tin Joseph said yes­ter­day's pro­mo­tion of close to 500 po­lice of­fi­cers was not an act of "pol­i­tick­ing" by the PNM. Joseph made the re­marks while de­liv­er­ing the fea­ture ad­dress dur­ing the pro­mo­tion cer­e­mo­ny of po­lice con­sta­bles to the rank of cor­po­ral. The pro­mo­tion ex­er­cise was held at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion build­ing in Port-of-Spain.

"I want to dis­pel the be­lief by those who want to give the im­pres­sion that this pro­mo­tion is part of the elec­tion cam­paign," Joseph said. Us­ing the oc­ca­sion to state that he had nev­er com­pro­mised the of­fice of the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er, Joseph de­nied ask­ing act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er James Philbert for favours, in­clud­ing the grant­i­ng of gun li­cences to cer­tain peo­ple.

"So when the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice de­nied an or­gan­i­sa­tion I be­long to the per­mis­sion to march, he will tell you no con­ver­sa­tion was ever held be­tween him and me," he said. "He will tell you the ap­pli­ca­tion didn't come from me as gen­er­al sec­re­tary...it was the as­sis­tant gen­er­al sec­re­tary who sent the ap­pli­ca­tion." Ad­dress­ing the new cor­po­rals, Philbert urged them not to bring the Po­lice Ser­vice in­to dis­re­pute.

The top cop told the gath­er­ing that he could not re­mem­ber the last time con­sta­bles were pro­mot­ed and in such a large num­ber. Close to 1,201 can­di­dates were in­ter­viewed in a process which be­gan on Oc­to­ber 13, 2008 and com­menced on De­cem­ber 21, last year. Say­ing that the Po­lice Ser­vice was "in dire need" of su­per­vi­sion, Philbert called on the pro­mot­ed of­fi­cers to re­frain from abus­ing the sick leave process and ab­stain from "do­ing every­thing else" ex­pect po­lice work.