Camille Clarke

A Cana­di­an na­tion­al and As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Mau­rice Pig­gott were both high­ly-rec­om­mend­ed for the post of Com­mis­sion­er, ac­cord­ing to sources. Five can­di­dates were se­lect­ed–two Cana­di­ans, a Caribbean na­tion­al, an Amer­i­can and Pig­gott, the on­ly lo­cal. The post of three deputy com­mis­sion­ers and com­mis­sion­er will be de­bat­ed in Par­lia­ment be­fore the end of this month to de­ter­mine who is se­lect­ed, ac­cord­ing to the law. Sources said there were dis­agree­ments among se­nior po­lice of­fi­cers, in­clud­ing sev­er­al mem­bers of Po­lice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion with re­gards to a lo­cal or for­eign­er be­ing cho­sen for the post of com­mis­sion­er.

Many felt that a lo­cal should be the on­ly choice for com­mis­sion­er. This caused a rift among sev­er­al mem­bers of the as­so­ci­a­tion who were go­ing up for up­com­ing elec­tions. The po­lice as­so­ci­a­tion's elec­tion is sched­uled for June 28. "There were many is­sues with who want­ed a lo­cal com­mis­sion­er and who is a leader of the ser­vice in the right di­rec­tion," the source said. In May, act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er James Philbert and Deputy Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gilbert Reyes were grant­ed six-month ex­ten­sions on their terms of ser­vice.

In No­vem­ber 2009, Cab­i­net award­ed a $4.6 mil­lion con­tract for Penn State Uni­ver­si­ty to pro­ceed with the se­lec­tion of a short list of nom­i­nees for the post of com­mis­sion­er. Par­lia­ment had re­ject­ed As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er Stephen Williams af­ter he was cho­sen by the PSC. Se­nior of­fi­cers said there were some 6,000 po­lice of­fi­cers lo­cal­ly, re­gion­al­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly who were qual­i­fied to fill the po­si­tion. Williams was cho­sen last year for the po­si­tion of com­mis­sion­er by the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion.

Par­lia­ment had re­ject­ed Williams af­ter he was cho­sen by the com­mis­sion.

The com­mis­sion start­ed the ap­pli­ca­tion process for a new com­mis­sion­er.

Par­lia­ment ap­proved "le­gal no­tices for the se­lec­tion and ap­point­ment of the new com­mis­sion­er and deputy com­mis­sion­er." The first phase in­cludes a "term of ref­er­ence" be­ing pre­pared by the Di­rec­tor of Per­son­nel Ad­min­is­tra­tion and for­ward­ed to the man­ag­ing di­rec­tor, Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Prop­er­ty De­vel­op­ment Co Ltd (Nipdec) for the con­duct of the se­lec­tion process for the fill­ing of the of­fices."