For­mer deputy chair­man of the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC), Mar­tin George has de­scribed the de­lay in con­firm­ing the lift­ing of Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher's sus­pen­sion as a “scan­dalous out­rage,” urg­ing im­me­di­ate ac­tion to re­store pub­lic con­fi­dence in the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS).

The crit­i­cism fol­lows re­ports that, al­though the sus­pen­sion has ef­fec­tive­ly end­ed, the PSC has yet to is­sue the for­mal let­ter to Com­mis­sion­er Hare­wood-Christo­pher al­low­ing her to re­sume du­ties. The for­mer PSC of­fi­cial, who al­so chaired the body’s ap­peals tri­bunal, called this in­ac­tion a “dere­lic­tion of du­ty.”

“If you would have had sight or knowl­edge of the re­lease from the DPP and based up­on your own in­ter­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tions and if you have no rea­son for con­tin­u­ing the sus­pen­sion from du­ty, then... such a let­ter would nor­mal­ly be is­sued im­me­di­ate­ly,” he stat­ed.

Re­veal­ing that Com­mis­sion­er Hare­wood-Christo­pher's at­tor­ney con­sult­ed him as re­cent­ly as yes­ter­day, the George em­pha­sized the im­por­tance of swift com­mu­ni­ca­tion. “You can­not have this state of flux and con­fu­sion with­in the up­per ech­e­lons of the po­lice ser­vice,” he said, es­pe­cial­ly when restor­ing or­der and good gov­er­nance was one of the stat­ed rea­sons for the sus­pen­sion.

The PSC’s con­sti­tu­tion­al role in in­su­lat­ing the po­lice from ex­ter­nal in­ter­fer­ence, he ar­gued, is un­der­mined by its cur­rent tar­di­ness. “Such ac­tions as this do lit­tle to re­store the pub­lic's con­fi­dence and trust,” he warned.

Call­ing on the PSC to act with­out fur­ther de­lay, the for­mer deputy chair­man al­so urged the body to ad­dress the pub­lic on the is­sue of suc­ces­sion plan­ning. “What is to hap­pen here? When to­mor­row comes and Mrs Hare­wood-Christo­pher's term un­der the cur­rent con­tract ex­pires, what is to hap­pen? Why must we re­main in this state of lim­bo?” he asked.

He ap­pealled, “please have the sit­u­a­tion rec­ti­fied at the ear­li­est pos­si­ble op­por­tu­ni­ty.”