RHON­DOR DOWLAT 

Se­nior Re­porter 

rhon­dor.dowlat@guardian.co.tt 

David West has been reap­point­ed as the di­rec­tor of the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA) for a third con­sec­u­tive term and al­ready has sev­er­al plans he wants to fo­cus on over the next five years.

He re­ceived con­fir­ma­tion of the ap­point­ment from act­ing pres­i­dent Nigel de Fre­itas yes­ter­day.  

A state­ment from the PCA con­firmed the reap­point­ment.
It said un­der West’s lead­er­ship, the PCA has seen strength­ened ac­count­abil­i­ty, trans­paren­cy, and pub­lic trust in polic­ing.
It al­so said his com­mit­ment to main­tain­ing over­sight of law en­force­ment in T&T has been marked by in­tegri­ty and a fo­cus on re­in­forc­ing the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s man­date.

When con­tact­ed, West shared the PCA’s fo­cus for the up­com­ing term, which in­cludes en­hanc­ing in­ves­tiga­tive process­es, lever­ag­ing avail­able re­sources, fos­ter­ing part­ner­ships with key stake­hold­ers and ad­vo­cat­ing for leg­isla­tive re­forms to im­prove ef­fi­cien­cy and ef­fec­tive­ness. West em­pha­sised the PCA’s com­mit­ment to con­duct­ing thor­ough and fair in­ves­ti­ga­tions.  

“The PCA is com­mit­ted to in­ves­ti­gat­ing com­plaints thor­ough­ly and fair­ly. We will con­tin­ue to hold of­fi­cers to the high­est stan­dards of pro­fes­sion­al­ism and ac­count­abil­i­ty.

“The PCA re­mains stead­fast in con­duct­ing in­de­pen­dent, im­par­tial in­ves­ti­ga­tions and mak­ing the nec­es­sary rec­om­men­da­tions for con­sid­er­a­tion of crim­i­nal or dis­ci­pli­nary pro­ceed­ings, where ap­pro­pri­ate, and is­su­ing ad­vice to the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice on ways in which the TTPS can re­duce or elim­i­nate po­lice cor­rup­tion and in­dis­ci­pline,” West said.

West said every or­gan­i­sa­tion faces chal­lenges and the PCA is no dif­fer­ent.

How­ev­er, dur­ing my cur­rent term, the PCA will be look­ing at build­ing on the progress made in im­prov­ing the PCA’s case­load man­age­ment, strength­en­ing our staff com­ple­ment, en­hanc­ing our in­ves­tiga­tive process­es and in­creas­ing en­gage­ment with com­mu­ni­ties across Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he added.