MP Kei­th Scot­land, SC, will have his work cut out for him as the po­lice of­fi­cers he has been giv­en re­spon­si­bil­i­ty over have at least 17 is­sues to dis­cuss.

While the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion (TTPSS­WA) is wel­com­ing Scot­land’s ad­di­tion to the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry, its pres­i­dent, As­sis­tant Su­per­in­ten­dent (ASP) Gideon Dick­son, be­lieves it is pru­dent they meet with him soon.

“The as­so­ci­a­tion views it as a pos­i­tive move in terms of the de­sire to treat the po­lice ser­vice spe­cial and to have some­one look­ing in­to the is­sues that im­pact the po­lice ser­vice. But we al­so hold true to the form that we do not just want per­sons be­ing ap­point­ed for a spe­cif­ic pur­pose and not be­ing able to be giv­en the man­date to de­liv­er in a time­ly man­ner what re­al­ly needs to be done,” Dick­son told Guardian Me­dia.

Dick­son ac­knowl­edged that, as the for­mer chair­man of the Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee (JSC), Scot­land may need a dif­fer­ent per­spec­tive re­gard­ing the op­er­a­tions of the TTPS.

“It will be in­te­gral for us and the new­ly ap­point­ed min­is­ter to meet as soon as pos­si­ble with a view of flesh­ing out some of the is­sues that have been lin­ger­ing for quite some time, and I think that if the min­is­ter ap­proach­es it from that lens, he will now be in a po­si­tion to have a panoram­ic view out­side of what he sees at the Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee and en­gag­ing dif­fer­ent hi­er­ar­chies in the or­gan­i­sa­tion. But he will be able to get it from the bel­ly of the beast it­self,” he ex­plained.

Scot­land is ex­pect­ed to meet with stake­hold­ers to­day. And he will meet with the TTSSP­WA next week.

Asked what is­sues in par­tic­u­lar the as­so­ci­a­tion wants ad­dressed, Dick­son sent a list of 17 top­ics.

They are the Pro­cure­ment Leg­is­la­tion and its im­pact on TTPS op­er­a­tions; med­ical in­sur­ance for po­lice of­fi­cers; their pen­sion plan, the ab­sorp­tion of spe­cial re­serve of­fi­cers (SRPs); the reg­u­la­tion of SRPs; recog­ni­tion sta­tus for mu­nic­i­pal of­fi­cers; is­sues re­lat­ing to the re­cruit­ment of of­fi­cers; a lack of phys­i­cal re­sources; is­sues with COVID al­lowances; a need for in­ter­na­tion­al lead­er­ship train­ing cours­es; hous­es for po­lice of­fi­cers; state land for hous­ing; state land for agri­cul­ture; the de­vel­op­ment of an out­door shoot­ing range; state of the art med­ical fa­cil­i­ties in To­ba­go; to host and fa­cil­i­tate dis­cus­sions with stake­hold­ers in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem; and to fa­cil­i­tate fo­rums for brain­storm­ing and strate­gis­ing with law en­force­ment per­son­nel.

But while the TTPSS­WSA be­lieves these mat­ters are press­ing, ASP Dick­son said they un­der­stand Scot­land will need a few days to set­tle in­to the new po­si­tion. But he is hop­ing that the meet­ing will hap­pen with­in the next two weeks.

“The as­so­ci­a­tion be­lieves in sym­bi­ot­ic re­la­tion­ships, and we al­so be­lieve in re­spect­ing of­fice­hold­ers and pro­vid­ing the sup­port that is need­ed to be able to get the job done. Once we are all clear of the ob­jec­tives, I think it is a good place to start. We will be ex­tend­ing our con­grat­u­la­tions to SC Scot­land, and we will al­so be try­ing to have a meet­ing with him hope­ful­ly with­in the next two weeks be­cause all things be­ing equal, we would want him to at least set­tle in­to his post and do the nec­es­sary scan­ning of his en­vi­ron­ment, then have that con­ver­sa­tion and take it from there,” he said.

‘Meet­ing’ with

TTPSS­WA a pri­or­i­ty’

Guardian Me­dia reached out to Scot­land, who said meet­ing with the as­so­ci­a­tion will cer­tain­ly be a pri­or­i­ty.

“I am not averse to that at all, and I am very will­ing to do that. I am will­ing to lis­ten to every sin­gle thing they have to say,” he said. The min­is­ter said he could not yet say when that meet­ing will hap­pen con­sid­er­ing he was on­ly of­fi­cial­ly ap­point­ed yes­ter­day, but he did re­it­er­ate that the meet­ing will hap­pen.

Mean­while, se­cu­ri­ty ex­pert Garvin Heer­ah said it would be wise for Scot­land to do all he can to boost the morale of TTPS of­fi­cers.

“The pri­or­i­ty fo­cus of Kei­th Scot­land at this time would def­i­nite­ly be the morale and the is­sues af­fect­ing the hard­work­ing men and women of the TTPS who are putting their lives on the line on a dai­ly busi­ness in a high-risk sce­nario,” he told Guardian Me­dia.

But while he be­lieves Scot­land’s ap­point­ment is a good move, he laments that it did not hap­pen soon­er. “I would think it was prob­a­bly a lit­tle too late; we would have liked to have seen some­thing like this a lot soon­er, but I think it adds a cer­tain amount of mus­cle to na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, it eas­es up some of the fo­cus of the present min­is­ter,” he posit­ed.

Heer­ah ac­knowl­edged that deal­ing with the TTPS in its present state is not an easy task, but he be­lieves Scot­land can get the job done once he sur­rounds him­self with the right peo­ple.