KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER &

AN­NA-LISA PAUL

Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher has been giv­en a one-year ex­ten­sion by the Cab­i­net but not all stake­hold­ers are hap­py with the de­ci­sion.

The an­nounce­ment was made in a me­dia re­lease yes­ter­day, hours af­ter At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour had told Par­lia­ment that a de­ci­sion on the CoP’s fate would come by to­day.

Wast­ing no time to weigh in on the mat­ter, Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ex­pressed dis­ap­point­ment at the de­ci­sion at the lat­est in­stal­la­tion of the par­ty’s an­ti-crime talks in Mor­vant.

“Be­fore I came here, we are sit­ting in the Par­lia­ment and I got a piece of news and that news doesn’t give me any as­sur­ance that with­in the next year, things will get any bet­ter with the crime in Trinidad and To­ba­go,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar told the gath­er­ing.

“You know what that news was? The Gov­ern­ment has now ex­tend­ed the con­tract of the present Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice.”

As boos and jeers filled the air, Per­sad-Bisses­sar un­der­scored, “Now I have no pain or no trou­ble with that Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice. In fact, we vot­ed for her when the mat­ter came to Par­lia­ment last time, we vot­ed, we said give her a chance and we have giv­en her a chance. But it is with a heavy heart that I re­port this tonight be­cause I am even more wor­ried what will be hap­pen­ing dur­ing the course of this year.”

Urg­ing those present to give the po­lice their due, Per­sad-Bisses­sar added, “We pray to God that Er­la will be able to lead them in this year, but I tell you my heart is very heavy in hear­ing this.” (See page 7)

For­mer com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith al­so wad­ed in­to the de­ci­sion.

“I think the ex­ten­sion of Er­la is ex­pect­ed, and maybe even ap­pro­pri­ate. Any in­de­pen­dent of­fice hold­er that shows com­pe­tence, suc­cess and pop­u­lar­i­ty above that of this Gov­ern­ment, is deemed as a threat.

“Re­mem­ber, Er­la, when mea­sured in per­for­mance and com­pe­tence by in­ter­na­tion­al ex­perts, could not place in the top 15 of those who ap­plied for CoP or deputy CoP and based on her per­for­mance and com­pe­tence, or lack of, in the last year, it is in­deed most ap­pro­pri­ate for her ex­ten­sion, as her stan­dard equates with that of the Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter and chair of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil,” Grif­fith said in a state­ment.

“So in terms of com­pe­tence, ac­count­abil­i­ty and per­for­mance, birds of a feath­er. You can­not ap­point a James Bond or a Ram­bo to work with the Mr Bean and Tom­my Joseph of T&T na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty. So her ex­ten­sion fits in per­fect­ly.”

Mean­while, for­mer Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PolSC) mem­ber Mar­tin George called on the Gov­ern­ment to in­form the pub­lic what led to its de­ci­sion.

George said, “One has to ques­tion on what ba­sis the Cab­i­net, which is con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly the di­rect­ing head of the coun­try, on what ba­sis would they have made that de­ci­sion and have found the con­fi­dence to say ‘well done, keep do­ing what you’re do­ing’. Be­cause to the av­er­age cit­i­zen and the or­di­nary man on the street, keep do­ing what you’re do­ing on­ly sig­nals and spells a con­tin­u­ing dis­as­ter and a com­plete fail­ure of the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus.”

George, an at­tor­ney, said crime is a con­cern of the cit­i­zens of T&T and each and every­one looks to the com­mis­sion­er at the helm.

How­ev­er, com­ment­ing on the CoP’s per­for­mance, for­mer Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) pres­i­dent Clyde Weath­er­head said, “As Gary Grif­fith says, let us judge on the mur­der is­sue and we will see. We’ve had more mass shoot­ings with­in the last cou­ple months of the tenure of this com­mis­sion­er. She keeps telling us, ‘well, say a prayer and let’s hope it gets bet­ter’. At the same time, she says ‘we’re on top of it’ but we’re not hav­ing a sit­u­a­tion where mur­ders are de­clin­ing in a se­ri­ous way. We had a short drop, a glitch last year, when com­pared to the year be­fore but we were still over 500 mur­ders for the year. We’re nev­er get­ting back to that 2002 fig­ure of 200.”

He added, “We’ve been told by the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice that the po­lice are work­ing as­sid­u­ous­ly, her favourite word, to elim­i­nate the gangs but that’s since she’s tak­en of­fice and it seems that the gangs are thriv­ing.”

Al­so con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, T&T Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion (TTSS­WA) pres­i­dent Gideon Dick­son said he was “watch­ing and ob­serv­ing like every­one else.”

How­ev­er, at the time of the an­nounce­ment, he said he would have to dis­cuss the mat­ter with the ex­ec­u­tive be­fore he could com­ment.

Some se­nior po­lice of­fi­cers al­so said yes­ter­day that they were not sur­prised their boss will serve for an­oth­er year. They said her pos­ture in meet­ings and plan­ning for events as far as Sep­tem­ber this year had giv­en them the im­pres­sion she al­ready knew her con­tract had been re­newed. Sources al­so said they be­lieved the con­tract would have been re­newed be­cause the PolSC’s call for ap­pli­ca­tions for the top cop po­si­tion, which end­ed on May 3, would have tak­en an­oth­er five or six months to com­plete the process.