Gail Alexan­der

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said yes­ter­day that the four-year process to se­lect and ap­point a po­lice com­mis­sion­er cost T&T more than $8 mil­lion and more than 1,800 mur­ders. She said the first process cost $3.4 mil­lion and the sec­ond one–now on–cost about $5 mil­lion. So it's now back to the draw­ing board. Cana­di­an nom­i­nee Neal Park­er has been unan­i­mous­ly re­ject­ed by the Par­lia­ment for the post of po­lice com­mis­sion­er, since he was part of the se­lec­tion process for a com­mis­sion­er in 2008, Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so said. Speak­ing in Par­lia­ment, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the process would move on the sec­ond and oth­er nom­i­nees on the mer­it list for CoP, un­til all are ex­haust­ed.

She said an­oth­er nom­i­nee for com­mis­sion­er, who was al­so part of the 2008 se­lec­tion process–and any oth­er such nom­i­nees–would be re­ject­ed as well. In the in­ter­im, a joint Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion team would re­view the law on the ap­point­ment of a com­mis­sion­er, fo­cus­ing on use of for­eign as­ses­sors/con­sul­tants and on whether lo­cal tal­ent can be drawn up­on to fill the post. The can­di­date now in the run­ning is Dwayne Gibbs, al­so a Cana­di­an. Per­sad-Bisses­sar's dis­clo­sures came in the Low­er House as she pi­lot­ed a mo­tion on rec­om­men­da­tions for a com­mis­sion­er of po­lice. Park­er was the sole nom­i­nee. Rec­om­mend­ed for the post of deputy com­mis­sion­ers were Stephen Williams, Mau­rice Pig­gott and Jack Ewats­ki. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said that out of the to­tal of 73 ap­pli­ca­tions for the post, on­ly four lo­cals ap­plied.

There are no lo­cals on the list of the first five can­di­dates, she added.

She said a re­cent meet­ing with the Po­lice Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tion re­vealed Park­er was a mem­ber of the se­lec­tion team in 2008 which se­lect­ed a com­mis­sion­er. "So Mr Park­er was on that side of the ta­ble in 2008 and in the 2009-2010 process he's on this side of the ta­ble as a can­di­date," Per­sad-Bisses­sar added. The PM wrote the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion chair­man Christo­pher Thomas on Thurs­day, seek­ing ver­i­fi­ca­tion in the is­sue. Thomas, re­ply­ing im­me­di­ate­ly, con­firmed that Park­er–who was at the top of the cur­rent mer­it list–was in­deed in­volved in Penn State Uni­ver­si­ty as an as­ses­sor in the 2008 se­lec­tion process. Per­sad -Bisses­sar said le­gal ad­vice yield­ed dif­fer­ent views on the mat­ter, in­clud­ing that Park­er's par­tic­i­pa­tion in the 2008 process did not taint his can­di­da­cy in the 2010 is­sue and al­so that there were no al­le­ga­tions of bias.

But she said there was al­so the view that Park­er en­joyed an un­fair ad­van­tage, hav­ing sat on the oth­er side of the ta­ble as an as­ses­sor in 2008. She said there was al­ways the pos­si­bil­i­ty of lit­i­ga­tion due to views that the in­tegri­ty of the process was com­pro­mised by Park­er's in­volve­ment in the 2008 mat­ter. "We joint­ly de­cid­ed to re­ject the nom­i­na­tion of Neal Park­er, hav­ing par­tic­i­pat­ed in the 2008 process since the pub­lic per­cep­tion of him en­joy­ing an un­fair ad­van­tage is one that may have some le­git­i­ma­cy," Per­sad-Bisses­sar said. "We can­not de­lay the ap­point­ment of a new com­mis­sion­er of po­lice, but we must al­so avoid the pos­si­bil­i­ty of pro­tract­ed lit­i­ga­tion and ques­tion marks hang­ing over a com­mis­sion­er be­ing ap­point­ed in such cir­cum­stances."

Not­ing the sit­u­a­tion's sen­si­tiv­i­ty, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said:

"A new com­mis­sion­er of po­lice must in­spire and re­store pub­lic con­fi­dence in the Po­lice Ser­vice. "The new com­mis­sion­er must not be bur­dened or dis­tract­ed with any ques­tion marks over his head with ques­tions about his ap­point­ment or per­for­mance of his du­ties es­pe­cial­ly with the war on crime on," she added. Stat­ing that the present sys­tem need­ed re­view, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said it was cost­ly cum­ber­some and com­pli­cat­ed. The joint par­lia­men­tary team to re­view the ap­point­ment process will meet with stake­hold­ers, in­clud­ing NGOs, cham­bers and re­li­gious bod­ies. The Prime Min­is­ter said said re­cent dis­cus­sions on the is­sue with Op­po­si­tion Leader Kei­th Row­ley were cor­dial and both sides found com­mon ground amid dif­fer­ences.

She thanked her pre­de­ces­sor, for­mer prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning for his nine years of ser­vice as prime min­is­ter and for start­ing the process of craft­ing leg­is­la­tion for the CoP is­sue. The Gov­ern­ment has al­so giv­en the Po­lice Ser­vice 60 ve­hi­cles used in last year's sum­mits, Per­sad-Bisses­sar added.