Gail Alexan­der

The House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives will this af­ter­noon de­bate the no­ti­fi­ca­tions for five mem­bers of the new Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion, in­clud­ing crim­i­nol­o­gist/at­tor­ney Dr Wen­dell C Wal­lace who is al­so a mem­ber of the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC).

No­ti­fi­ca­tions for the five nom­i­nees were sent by Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo to the Par­lia­ment re­cent­ly. The term of the pre­vi­ous Com­mis­sion end­ed at mid­night last Fri­day. Four of the five mem­bers of that com­mis­sion—in­clud­ing chair­man re­tired Jus­tice of Ap­peal Ju­dith Jones, Max­ine At­tong, Max­ine King and Ra­jiv Per­sad, Se­nior Coun­sel-are ex­it­ing. The fifth mem­ber Ian Rand­hanie is be­ing re­tained in the pro­posed new PolSC.

Un­der the con­sti­tu­tion, the Pres­i­dent shall, af­ter con­sul­ta­tion with the Prime Min­is­ter and Leader of the Op­po­si­tion nom­i­nate peo­ple, who are qual­i­fied and ex­pe­ri­enced in the dis­ci­plines of law, fi­nance, so­ci­ol­o­gy or man­age­ment to be ap­point­ed as mem­bers of the com­mis­sion.

The no­ti­fi­ca­tions were laid in Par­lia­ment last Fri­day by Deputy House Speak­er Es­mond Forde.

The no­ti­fi­ca­tions were for Wal­lace, past PolSC mem­ber Ramd­hanie, at­tor­ney An­ni­ka Fritz-Browne, hu­man re­sources man­age­ment ex­pert Ethel Hec­tor-Berke­ley and hu­man re­sources spe­cial­ist Roger Ba­booram. The no­ti­fi­ca­tions are sub­ject to af­fir­ma­tive res­o­lu­tion by the House. They will be de­bat­ed by both sides to­day, with the de­bate ex­pect­ed to be pi­lot­ed by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley.

Wal­lace, who is said to be from To­ba­go, is a crim­i­nol­o­gist and crim­i­nal jus­tice ex­pert, se­nior UWI lec­tur­er, at­tor­ney and me­di­a­tor. He was called to the bar in both T&T and Eng­land and Wales.

He is a pub­lished aca­d­e­mi­cian, much of whose work - ac­cord­ing to UWI’s web­site -fo­cus­es on polic­ing, gangs, vi­o­lence (do­mes­tic and school), crim­i­nal jus­tice re­form and the tourism/crime nexus.

Wal­lace has com­plet­ed sev­er­al re­search projects on gangs in T&T and has been work­ing on a project on polic­ing in the Caribbean. Among ear­li­er ca­reer high­lights, he was al­so a hu­man re­source man­ag­er, ad­junct lec­tur­er, po­lice of­fi­cer (1989-2008) and school teacher at To­ba­go Mod­ern Acad­e­my (1988-1989).

Ac­cord­ing to a gazetted no­tice, Wal­lace was ap­point­ed an EBC com­mis­sion­er in Au­gust 2021 for a five-year term.

Fritz-Browne re­port­ed­ly has had a 20-year ca­reer in law. She is a trained leg­isla­tive drafter, land plan­ner, cer­ti­fied me­di­a­tor for civ­il and non-fam­i­ly mat­ters and le­gal con­sul­tant. Her back­ground over the years in­cludes work as the le­gal of­fi­cer at the Of­fice of the Par­lia­ment (2012-2013) and the Min­istries of Food Pro­duc­tion and Health.

Hec­tor-Berke­ley holds de­grees in man­age­ment and busi­ness ad­min­is­tra­tion and has a pro­fes­sion­al back­ground in hu­man re­sources man­age­ment. Her ca­reer path has in­clud­ed time at the Of­fice of the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer and as a To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly ad­min­is­tra­tor.

Ba­booram holds de­grees in Man­age­ment Stud­ies, an MBA and oth­er HR cer­ti­fi­ca­tions. His ca­reer be­gan at Petrotrin as a se­nior HR an­a­lyst in Sep­tem­ber 1997, and con­tin­ued at the Bar­ba­dos Light and Pow­er Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed and at Ca­ble and Wire­less Com­mu­ni­ca­tions. Cur­rent­ly, he is at Lib­er­ty Latin Amer­i­ca.

Ramd­hanie has a back­ground in so­ci­ol­o­gy and man­age­ment stud­ies (with a spe­cial­i­sa­tion in crim­i­nol­o­gy and white-col­lar crime) and was work­ing to­wards a PhD in So­cial Pol­i­cy and Crime. He is the aca­d­e­m­ic head of the Caribbean In­sti­tute for Se­cu­ri­ty and Pub­lic Safe­ty.

Al­so to be de­bat­ed in Par­lia­ment to­day is a Fi­nance bill which af­fects items in the 2025 Bud­get.