Gail Alexan­der

Yes­ter­day’s Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC) meet­ing may have been the last straw?

Af­ter yes­ter­day’s res­ig­na­tion of Court­ney Mc­Nish from the com­mis­sion, there was sub­se­quent si­lence from oth­er mem­bers Su­san Craig-James and Roger Kawals­ingh on whether they might re­sign al­so.

But UNC MP Roodal Mooni­lal has called on both to say if they sup­port­ed the com­mis­sion’s de­ci­sion to ‘sus­pend’ Gary Grif­fith.

“And I call on PSC chair­man Bliss Seep­er­sad to say if the ‘sus­pen­sion’ was her de­ci­sion or that of Prime Min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley and Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds,” he added.

Mooni­lal said in the next 24 hours the pub­lic will learn of the PSC chair­man’s al­leged “high-hand­ed­ness.”

Mc­Nish re­signed yes­ter­day fol­low­ing a vir­tu­al meet­ing com­mis­sion­ers held with Seep­er­sad on the broad is­sues re­gard­ing the se­lec­tion process for a Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er and re­cent mat­ters con­cern­ing Grif­fith. The 10.30 am meet­ing was held vir­tu­al­ly.

Sources con­firmed dis­cus­sions at yes­ter­day’s PSC meet­ing were al­so had by mem­ber com­mis­sion­ers (for the first time) with re­tired Jus­tice Stan­ley John, whom the PSC hired to ex­am­ine mat­ters, in­clud­ing re­gard­ing firearms users’ li­cences is­sues with­in the TTPS.

Mc­Nish didn’t re­spond to ques­tions sent by TG on What­sapp yes­ter­day, al­though the mes­sages were opened. The TG had asked about pos­si­ble rea­sons for his res­ig­na­tion, in­clud­ing whether he and oth­er com­mis­sion­ers had con­cerns with the way the CoP se­lec­tion is­sue and sub­se­quent pro­ce­dures and sus­pen­sion were be­ing han­dled and if con­cerns were be­ing ex­pressed for a while since Au­gust. Nor did he re­ply on queries whether he had con­cerns on the di­rec­tion by the PSC chair­man, whether com­mis­sion­ers felt they hadn’t got­ten suf­fi­cient/cor­rect in­for­ma­tion - and if he felt PSC was be­ing ma­nip­u­lat­ed and he no longer want­ed to be there.

Kawals­ingh when asked if he would re­sign, told Guardian Me­dia he was not au­tho­rised to speak to me­dia and de­clined com­ment. Craig-James al­so said she wasn’t au­tho­rised to speak to re­porters and “I can­not give any com­ment what­so­ev­er.”

Sources said there’s been con­cern by com­mis­sion­ers on the CoP se­lec­tion is­sue and re­lat­ed mat­ters since mid-Au­gust when the se­lec­tion process halt­ed. This in­clud­ed up to last week­end, when con­cern was ex­pressed about the let­ter sent to Grif­fith last Fri­day.

Seep­er­sad didn’t re­spond yes­ter­day.

The se­lec­tion process be­gan on June 17. The PSC is un­der­stood to have had a nom­i­nee short list of sev­en in­clud­ing Grif­fith. But the process halt­ed in Au­gust, it’s con­firmed.

Yes­ter­day, Mooni­lal said all com­mis­sion­ers should re­sign in light of their “blun­ders, in­com­pe­tence and il­le­gal­i­ty of ac­tion,” as the PSC’s let­ter to Grif­fith ap­point­ing him to act, says this was “pend­ing con­clu­sion of the se­lec­tion process.”

Mooni­lal said the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil could on­ly deal with pol­i­cy and was not a law en­force­ment agency, and if the PM had in­for­ma­tion on im­prop­er con­duct/wrong­do­ing, he could have sent it to the DPP or Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA).

He ques­tioned if both of the two re­tired se­cu­ri­ty heads, who did the re­port for the coun­cil, signed it.

Yes­ter­day, Hinds and At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi did n0t re­spond to queries on Mc­Nish’s res­ig­na­tion and the im­pli­ca­tions for the PSC and CoP mat­ters.

Oth­er Gov­ern­ment sources said the mat­ter can on­ly be re­viewed as PSC was an in­de­pen­dent body

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Min­is­ter Symon de No­bre­ga said he had on­ly just got no­tice of the res­ig­na­tion and couldn’t com­ment.

Oth­er Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, how­ev­er, said the res­ig­na­tion was “sur­pris­ing.”

Yes­ter­day, it was con­firmed, via let­ter which Guardian Me­dia saw, that Seep­er­sad, in an Au­gust 15 let­ter to Grif­fith, con­firmed the process to se­lect a CoP wasn’t con­clud­ed.

She said a list of suit­ably qual­i­fied nom­i­nees from those on con­tract or pre­vi­ous­ly on con­tract was sent to the Pres­i­dent on Au­gust 12 and this was ac­knowl­edged on Au­gust 13.

The chair­man then said Grif­fith was ap­point­ed as act­ing CoP pend­ing com­ple­tion of the CoP se­lec­tion process.

Mean­while, Grif­fith yes­ter­day trashed ar­gu­ments by Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds on the post of act­ing CoP.

Dur­ing an in­ter­view on the Brighter Morn­ing pro­gramme with for­mer gov­ern­ment min­is­ter Dr Bhoe Tewarie on Mon­day, Hinds said Grif­fith is now a civil­ian with­out pow­er and there is on­ly one act­ing CoP in Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob

But yes­ter­day, Grif­fith said, “Un­for­tu­nate­ly the Min­is­ter is wrong. Again, he does not un­der­stand the dif­fer­ence be­tween a sub­stan­tive act­ing COP who is ap­point­ed by the PSC, to one who is Act­ing CoP in the ab­sence of the ap­point­ed one. For ex­am­ple, when Stephen Williams was the ap­point­ed act­ing CoP, if he went abroad, he was not de­mot­ed to be a DCP but some­one act­ed in his ab­sence. A child could un­der­stand this.”