Appoint Williams as CoP

THE EDITOR: The Police Service Commission (PSC) is a corporate body with continuity in status.

Over a six-year period, the PSC has not seen it fit to replace Stephen Williams as acting Commissioner of Police by any officer of superior capability.

The PSC has now found itself recommending for appointment to the positions of CoP and deputy COP, respectively, people who had been supervised by Williams over the six- year period.

The Police Service has not “fallen apart” during the period of Williams’ continuous acting appointment. Indeed, if anything, it seems to have improved somewhat, even making allowance for the possible lack of full moral authority within which Williams had been forced to function.

To appoint anyone other than Williams as CoP (even someone from outside the present police establishment) would be an act of inhumanity and injustice.

I have noted the comments of none other than Prof Ramesh Deosaran, criminologist and more especially a former chairman of the PSC, in which he lauded Williams for his commitment to duty during his unusual acting appointment of over six years.

Moreover, the goodly professor suggests that an apology is due to Williams for the “ill-treatment” meted out to him from the authorities concerned, including the past president of the republic and the Parliament. My suggestion is that the Williams situation demands a solution of more practical and tangible content.

I seem to recall that it is a convention (if not a statutory provision) that public officers be confirmed in a substantive post in which they had been acting continuously for a period of one year.

My suggestion, therefore (even if not applicable to the complete letter of the law), is that the PSC withdraws the recommendation now before the Parliament and recommends that Williams be appointed substantive Commissioner of Police effective from the first date of his acting appointment After all, has he not been in this “Hollywood run-around” for this period?

Needless to say, by so doing, all, including the special committee of the House of Representatives, should be relieved of what has become an ignoble and messy situation.

ERROL OC CUPID
, Tacarigua