Ali­cia Llanos

Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards yes­ter­day re­voked the ap­point­ment of chair­man of the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion, Nizam Mo­hammed, cit­ing Sec­tion 122A (1) (d) and (f) of the Con­sti­tu­tion (Amend­ment) Act 2006.Sec­tion 122A (1) states: "The Pres­i­dent shall, af­ter con­sul­ta­tion with the Prime Min­is­ter and the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion, ter­mi­nate the ap­point­ment of a mem­ber of the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion, if the mem­ber

(d) fails to per­form his du­ties in a re­spon­si­ble or time­ly man­ner; and,

(f) demon­strates a lack of com­pe­tence to per­form his du­ties.

Mo­hammed's re­marks were con­demned by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar as reck­less and ir­re­spon­si­ble."Mem­bers of the Gov­ern­ment, Op­po­si­tion, the Po­lice Ser­vice and oth­er na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tions pub­licly called for Mo­hammed's re­moval.Fol­low­ing are the com­ments from promi­nent mem­bers of the pub­lic:

Bas­deo Pan­day,for­mer prime min­is­ter

Nizam Mo­hammed's dis­missal will fur­ther the con­scious­ness of racism ex­ist­ing in T&T.Mo­hammed's dis­missal would not do any­thing to lessen the aware­ness of eth­nic im­bal­ances with­in the Po­lice Ser­vice and oth­er sec­tors in T&T.In my opin­ion Mo­hammed's po­si­tion was re­voked due to po­lit­i­cal pres­sure placed on the Gov­ern­ment.The Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar must come for­ward and ex­plain to the pub­lic why Mo­hammed's po­si­tion was re­voked.A sim­i­lar state­ment must come from the Pres­i­dent.

Sat Ma­hara­jsec­re­tary gen­er­al of the Ma­ha Sab­ha

There is no jus­ti­fi­ca­tion be­hind the dis­missal of Nizam Mo­hammed from his po­si­tion as chair­man of the PSC.Mo­hammed "was on­ly speak­ing the truth," and there was no true jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for his dis­missal.The Pres­i­dent act­ed on pub­lic and po­lit­i­cal opin­ion rather than ap­pro­pri­ate­ly deal­ing with the mat­ter of eth­nic im­bal­ances in the Po­lice Ser­vice.

Dr Amery Browne,Op­po­si­tion MP

Nizam Mo­hammed's po­si­tion should have been re­voked in Ju­ly of last year when he failed to com­ply with law­ful in­struc­tions af­ter a traf­fic vi­o­la­tion.Mo­hammed's dis­missal was an "ex­am­ple of the Pres­i­dent ful­fill­ing his re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and tak­ing de­ci­sive ac­tion in the best in­ter­est of the cit­i­zens of T&T.

Dana See­ta­hal.se­nior coun­sel:

The Pres­i­dent made the right de­ci­sion by re­vok­ing Nizam Mo­hammed's po­si­tion as he had proved him­self in­com­pe­tent of hold­ing such a high-rank­ing po­si­tion.Mo­hammed did not un­der­stand his re­mit and his state­ments showed his in­com­pe­tence to head the PSC.His state­ments were void of cul­tur­al and so­cial analy­ses and had the po­ten­tial to cause a se­vere di­vi­sion with­in the Po­lice Ser­vice.It was ir­re­spon­si­ble to sug­gest one's race de­ter­mined one's place in the hi­er­ar­chy of the Po­lice Ser­vice.His state­ments went against the grain of the his­to­ry of the Po­lice Ser­vice.

Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj,for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al

Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards had no al­ter­na­tive but to take ac­tion against Nizam Mo­hammed.The Pres­i­dent act­ed well with­in the con­sti­tu­tion in re­mov­ing Mo­hammed on the ba­sis of his in­com­pe­tence to hold such a po­si­tion.Mo­hammed's state­ments were made on his own "per­son­al find­ings" and could have cre­at­ed "dis­af­fec­tion be­tween races in T&T."

Dr Hamid Ghany,se­nior lec­tur­er in gov­ern­ment at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies' St Au­gustineCam­pus

The re­vo­ca­tion of Nizam Mo­hammed's po­si­tion as chair­man of the Po­lice Ser­vices Com­mis­sion was nec­es­sary.The ram­i­fi­ca­tions of Mo­hammed's state­ments would have caused con­sid­er­able dam­age to eth­nic re­la­tions with­in the Po­lice Ser­vice.If Mo­hammed had re­mained chair­man, any East In­di­an would have had their nom­i­na­tion for pro­mo­tion re­viewed "in a light of sus­pi­cion."Mo­hammed would have caused oth­er mem­bers of the Po­lice Ser­vice who were not of East In­di­an de­scent to feel threat­ened that they may not be treat­ed fair­ly, based on the agen­da he out­lined to rec­ti­fy eth­nic im­bal­ances in the ser­vice.

Is­rael Khan, se­nior coun­sel:

Nizam Mo­hammed was wrong­ly con­demned.Mo­hammed be­came a sui­cide bomber be­ing con­demned not for what he said, but how he said it.Mo­hammed was with­in his rights to dis­cuss eth­nic im­bal­ances with­in the Po­lice Ser­vice.Mo­hammed's state­ments be­came in­tan­gi­ble to the Gov­ern­ment, Op­po­si­tion and the Po­lice Ser­vice it­self, lead­ing to his con­dem­na­tion.I do not agree with Mo­hammed's po­si­tion be­ing re­voked but un­der­stood it would be im­pos­si­ble for him to con­tin­ue to work in the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion.De­spite my ob­jec­tions I re­spect the de­ci­sion of the Pres­i­dent.

Jack Ewats­ki,

Deputy Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er

The po­lice need to re­main fo­cussed on the job they have to do.This in­cludes pro­vid­ing safe­ty to the pub­lic, ap­pre­hend­ing crim­i­nals and solv­ing crimes.