Jesse Ramdeo

Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions Roger Gas­pard says his Of­fice re­mains se­vere­ly ham­strung by a hu­man re­source is­sue, in­clud­ing that the of­fi­cer does not have a hu­man re­sources man­ag­er to deal with hir­ing and man­age­ment of staff.

He made the com­ment dur­ing a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee of Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day called to shine the spot­light on sev­er­al is­sues with­in his of­fice.

Both Gas­pard and Deputy DPP Joan Hon­ore-Paul high­light­ed the hu­man re­source man­age­ment chal­lenge that con­tin­ued to im­pede staffing al­lo­ca­tion as they re­spond­ed to ques­tions from the JSC mem­bers.

JSC mem­ber Paul Richards asked how much the HR in­suf­fi­cien­cy had con­tributed to the staff and hu­man re­source is­sues fac­ing the of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions.

Hon­ore-Paul said the im­pact was sig­nif­i­cant.

“It is one of the largest fac­tors, when the Di­rec­tor in­di­cat­ed that HR is my forte, that is a fall­back po­si­tion be­cause my forte is pros­e­cu­tion. Be­cause we do not have an HR man­ag­er or a per­son ded­i­cat­ed for that, I have to take on a lot,” Hon­ore-Paul said.

She added that she would not be sur­prised if peo­ple felt shocked over hear­ing news of the ab­sence of an HR man­ag­er.

Gas­pard said aug­ment­ing the of­fice’s 58-mem­ber team was dif­fi­cult and lament­ed that salaries be­ing of­fered were al­so not at­trac­tive.

“The peo­ple in the DPP’s of­fice who are on per­ma­nent staff I be­lieve, are on 2013-2014 salaries, the work­load would have mul­ti­plied sig­nif­i­cant­ly since then, there are sev­er­al new pieces of leg­is­la­tion, there are sev­er­al com­mend­able ini­tia­tives which would have been put in train by the ju­di­cia­ry and some of these ini­tia­tives are not bear­ing the kind of fruit that they might have, had per­sons been more in­clined to see pros­e­cu­tion as a ca­reer, to see them­selves be­ing ad­e­quate­ly re­mu­ner­at­ed for their ef­forts as a pros­e­cu­tor. So, at the end of the day, you find there is a heavy turnover and haem­or­rhag­ing of staff, so that be­tween 2019 and 2023 the DPP’s of­fice would have lost 25 per­sons, by any stretch of the imag­i­na­tion, that is very high.”

The DPP al­so not­ed that bud­getary con­straints and the abil­i­ty to make re­cruit­ment de­ci­sions were al­so dis­ad­van­tag­ing the of­fice’s op­er­a­tions.

“The DPP’s of­fice has no bud­get to place ads and so on, we can­not do that. That his­tor­i­cal­ly, and I have been in the DPP’s Of­fice, next year will be 30 years, his­tor­i­cal­ly, no DPP has had to re­cruit staff and that has nev­er been the oblig­a­tion of any Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tion be­cause none of the DPPs, my pre­de­ces­sors would have been Chief Fi­nan­cial Of­fi­cers.

“Lo and be­hold, on­ly Mon­day gone, the ho­n­ourable AG would have writ­ten to me say­ing ‘you re­cruit staff since you are a Chief Le­gal Of­fi­cer, you just have to li­aise with my PS’. To equate the DPP as Chief Le­gal Of­fi­cer with a PS, in my re­spect­ful view, is a mis­placed equa­tion.”

Gas­pard al­so con­tend­ed that there must be a greater re­liance on sci­en­tif­ic ev­i­dence to aid in im­prov­ing this coun­try’s con­vic­tion rate.

Gas­pard al­so con­firmed that he missed the just con­clud­ed two-day Cari­com Crime Sym­po­sium, al­though an in­vi­ta­tion was ex­tend­ed to him.

Pressed by com­mit­tee mem­bers to state his po­si­tion on the im­pact of Cari­com’s de­ci­sion to ban the pub­lic use of as­sault weapons, Gas­pard was guard­ed.

“That is not re­al­ly my area of ex­per­tise, so I’m very re­luc­tant to ex­press any opin­ions on that. I like to be safe, so I would sail my boat as close as pos­si­ble to pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al hori­zons.” —Jesse Ramdeo