An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

With days left to go be­fore the one-year con­tract of Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher comes to an end, the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PolSC) has opened ap­pli­ca­tions for the po­si­tion.

The ad­ver­tise­ment ap­peared in the dai­ly news­pa­per yes­ter­day with a head­line that read ‘Job Op­por­tu­ni­ty, Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice’—and pro­vid­ed de­tails of the po­si­tion, in­clud­ing the job sum­ma­ry which list­ed the qual­i­fi­ca­tions and ex­pe­ri­ence be­ing sought.

Un­der the head­ing, Guide for Ap­pli­cants, the el­i­gi­bil­i­ty re­quire­ments as to what was need­ed when mak­ing an ap­pli­ca­tion were out­lined.

The clos­ing date for ap­pli­ca­tions, which must be sub­mit­ted on­line on­ly, was list­ed as 4 pm on May 3.

Hare­wood-Christo­pher took up the reins as the act­ing head of the TTPS on De­cem­ber 7, 2022, af­ter for­mer act­ing top cop Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob pro­ceed­ed on 35 days of va­ca­tion.

She was of­fi­cial­ly sworn in on Feb­ru­ary 2, 2023, be­com­ing the coun­try’s first fe­male to be ap­point­ed in the po­si­tion.

Hare­wood-Christo­pher was 59 years at the time of her ap­point­ment and turned 60 on May 15, 2023—which is when she was legal­ly re­quired to re­sign from du­ty.

Ef­forts to reach Hare­wood-Christo­pher to find out if she would be reap­ply­ing or how she felt were all fu­tile.

Asked yes­ter­day if he was con­sid­er­ing toss­ing his hat back in­to the ring and would be ap­ply­ing, for­mer com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith stat­ed, “No, def­i­nite­ly not. Been there, done that.”

He claimed it would make no sense to reap­ply, as there was a “taint­ed, in­com­pe­tent Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion that would have se­lect­ed some­one who didn’t even come in the top 15 in 2018, by qual­i­fied in­ter­na­tion­al ex­perts who se­lect com­mis­sion­ers around the world...some­body who got 30 per cent less”.

De­fend­ing Hare­wood-Christo­pher, whom he said did not im­pose her­self on the na­tion but was forced on the pop­u­la­tion by an in­com­pe­tent PolSC, Grif­fith hint­ed of po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence and again called for the re­moval of the PolSC.

For­mer act­ing com­mis­sion­er Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob had no com­ment on the ap­pli­ca­tion and on Hare­wood-Christo­pher’s tenure.

Yes­ter­day, se­nior of­fi­cers spec­u­lat­ed about the call for ap­pli­cants.

One of­fi­cer said, “Gov­ern­ment has the op­tion to give her the ad­di­tion­al year if they wish, and if they are ful­ly sat­is­fied with her per­for­mance...they could eas­i­ly do that.”

But he ques­tioned, “Why did they do it now?”

A sec­ond of­fi­cer found the move was “odd”.