Intelligence sources have revealed that there are some rumblings taking place within the executive of the Police Service.
It is also believed that there may be a political directive that is driving and dictating the recent developments.
On Tuesday, two senior police officers were given their walking papers by acting Commissioner of Police Stephen Williams during the weekly police executive meeting.
The men, head of the Eastern Division Snr Supt John Trim and head of the Inter-Agency Task Force Snr Supt Simbonath Rajkumar, formerly head of the Northern Division, were each given a letter outlining the shortcomings in their divisions and given seven days to respond. Sources said that it may even be too late for Williams as his position is also allegedly being held to account for the failing grade of the Police Service and the rise in crime.
“Demanding resignations from the operational level for non-performance must be coupled and equally balanced by performance and results based incentives of the executive,” an intelligence source said.
“The core of the TTPS is crying out for a review of the entire executive and a transparent diagnosis in the upcoming audit (to be conducted by Professor Ramesh Deosaran and his team) they are openly questioning the present concept of the so- called meritocracy that exist in the appraisal system of the TTPS today,” the source added.
Former national security minister, Gary Griffith , said that while Williams has the power to hire and fire, questioned why he took so long to do such.
However, he added that firing should not only be based on statistics and if so, believes Williams should be fired as well.
“It starts from the top. It is highly hypocritical that he would try to point fingers at someone just below him in rank when he must be the person that is totally responsible,” Griffith said.
Taking into consideration the total day of policing where the entire country was brought to a standstill and the incident where police officers walked out of the then prime minister’s residence in Phillipine claiming that they were all sick at the same time, Griffith blamed it on bad management.
“You don’t need criminal charges to fire officers. By that action it shows poor management, poor decision making and poor administration and they should have all been fired,” Griffith said.
“What about the many junior officers who would be abusive to citizens by refusing to hand over their identification numbers to citizens? The point is, you have to measure up,” he added. The T&T Chamber of Industry and Commerce also commended Williams’ actions.
“The T&T Chamber extended full support of any move that effectively holds our police officers, and by extension, all public officers to account in the performance of their duty. Until and unless we foster a culture of positive work ethic and productivity across all our institutions, we will continue to find ourselves throttled by inertia and ultimately accomplishing very little or nothing at all,” the Chamber stated in a release.
It added that if similar measures – such as those alleged to have been taken by the Acting CoP - were to be initiated throughout all public institutions, the effects would make a huge difference in the way business is done in T&T.