More than 1,500 re­cruits of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) have been af­fect­ed by the can­cel­la­tion of an ex­am­i­na­tion they were sched­uled to sit last Sat­ur­day.

The ex­am­i­na­tion was post­poned due to an al­leged IT prob­lem.

This was re­vealed by the pres­i­dent of the Po­lice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion act­ing ASP Gideon Dick­son.

In a re­cent re­lease, the of­fice of the TTPS in­formed the re­cruits of the post­pone­ment of their Feb­ru­ary 17 as­sess­ment.

It stat­ed that the ex­am­i­na­tion will now take place on March 2.

The re­lease stat­ed that the post­pone­ment was due to un­fore­seen tech­ni­cal dif­fi­cul­ties which they were vig­or­ous­ly work­ing on to en­sure a fair and re­li­able as­sess­ment en­vi­ron­ment for all par­tic­i­pants.

The of­fice apol­o­gised for the in­con­ve­nience caused.

Dick­son ex­plained that the re­cruits were sup­posed to re­ceive emails in­form­ing them when to at­tend the ex­am­i­na­tion.

How­ev­er, some of them did not re­ceive this cor­re­spon­dence.

“They had some chal­lenges on the (IT) plat­form...get­ting it up and run­ning. It was a tech­ni­cal chal­lenge.”

He spec­u­lat­ed that be­cause of this dis­rup­tion in the sys­tem, emails could not have been sent out to suc­cess­ful re­cruits in­form­ing them of their ex­am­i­na­tion date.

Dick­son es­ti­mat­ed that more than 1,000 re­cruits were af­fect­ed.

“All would be af­fect­ed. I don’t have the raw da­ta but I am cer­tain it is well over 1,500 guys would have been im­pact­ed.”

Dick­son said from time to time or­gan­i­sa­tions face tech­ni­cal chal­lenges.

“We are in the era where these things will hap­pen and it’s how we are able to rem­e­dy these tech­ni­cal­i­ties with a view of im­prov­ing our lev­el of de­liv­ery.”

He said these in­ci­dents should be a learn­ing process for the TTPS which should not be re­peat­ed.

Ear­li­er this month, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher was or­dered to re­open the screen­ing process for prospec­tive of­fi­cers to in­clude those who may have been pre­vi­ous­ly ex­clud­ed due to their height.

It came af­ter High Court Judge Robin Mo­hammed up­held a law­suit from Re­nal­do Mara­jh, of Williamsville, who was pre­vi­ous­ly ex­clud­ed from re­cruit­ment for fail­ing to meet the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice’s (TTPS) min­i­mum height re­quire­ment.

In the law­suit, Mara­jh’s lawyers, led by Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, claimed that the re­quire­ment that male can­di­dates be a min­i­mum of 167 cen­time­tres in height, found in a Po­lice Ser­vice Reg­u­la­tion im­ple­ment­ed in 2007, was un­con­sti­tu­tion­al.

They claimed it was dis­crim­i­na­to­ry to prospec­tive can­di­dates of cer­tain racial groups, who are gen­er­al­ly short­er in stature than oth­ers. They al­so com­plained it was dis­crim­i­na­to­ry based on gen­der, as fe­male can­di­dates were re­quired to be a min­i­mum of 150 cen­time­tres.

In his judg­ment, Jus­tice Mo­hammed agreed.

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds lat­er said an ap­peal of the Judge’s rul­ing was like­ly.