Geisha Kow­lessar

New­ly-elect­ed pres­i­dent of the Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion Sgt Anand Rame­sar says he will sup­port the ap­point­ment of a for­eign­er as com­mis­sion­er of po­lice.

Mo­ments af­ter his ap­point­ment, Rame­sar said whether or not a for­eign­er was ap­point­ed, the Po­lice Ser­vice would have no choice but to work with him. Rame­sar, an at­tor­ney, who has ten years' ser­vice, won the elec­tion by a land­slide with his team called "Po­lice Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty." The 39-year-old of­fi­cer said he would throw his sup­port be­hind a for­eign­er, adding that he in­tend­ed to work with any­one who was ap­point­ed. "If a for­eign­er is ap­point­ed, then we in­tend to work in part­ner­ship with him...I would sup­port who­ev­er is ap­point­ed," Rame­sar said.

Rame­sar is the le­gal ad­vis­er to Cen­tral Di­vi­sion. He pre­vi­ous­ly worked as the le­gal ad­vis­er to the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty and was al­so as­signed to the Homi­cide Bu­reau and to the Fraud Squad. Asked what was the con­sen­sus among po­lice of­fi­cers over the pre­sumed ap­point­ment of a for­eign­er, Rame­sar said there was a di­vi­sion in the ranks.

"Some of­fi­cers would sup­port the ap­point­ment and oth­ers would not," he said. "There is some di­vi­sion among the ranks...I don't be­lieve it is to the ex­tent where of­fi­cers would wil­ful­ly stay away from du­ty." Ac­cord­ing to Rame­sar, an­oth­er is­sue of con­tention was a $400,000 deficit which was in­curred, af­ter the open­ing of a gas-sta­tion by the as­so­ci­a­tion in Laven­tille. "One of my first com­mit­ments is to re­view the books re­gard­ing the deficit of the gas sta­tion which amounts to some $400,000," he said. "We need to sort out that mat­ter ur­gent­ly."