Choosing the commissioner of police in this country can be a complicated matter. The delayed confirmation of Mr Henry Greene as commissioner after he had been acting in the position for thirty months says a lot about the administration’s personnel policy for the police force. The promotion of six senior superintendents to the rank of assistant commissioner also tells its own story about the prospects for police reform.
The force’s two most senior officers – Commissioner Henry Greene and Deputy Commissioner Edward Wills – are scheduled to retire on their 55th birthdays in April and May, respectively, this year and will have to be replaced. It is not clear who their successors will be although clues can be sought in the recent promotions. The most senior assistant commissioners are Paul Slowe, Leroy Brummell, Khrishna Lakeraj and Paulette Morrison. In addition, six new assistant commissioners – Seelall Persaud, Balram Persaud, Stephen Merai, Nolan Hendricks, George Vyfhuis and Gavin Primo – were promoted to that rank last week.
The success of the police reform process can be best assured if the new command team is assembled now. Settling the succession question by promoting the next senior assistant commissioner to fill the existing vacancy of deputy commissioner (operations) will avoid speculation and ensure a smooth transition to the office of commissioner.
Last year-end’s changes, however, seemed to signal the continuation of the opaque promotion policy that began twelve years ago when the then incumbent commissioner Mr Laurie Lewis was due to demit office having reached the statutory retirement age. The administration’s irregular decision to grant him a series of extraordinary extensions of service for the following five years severely disrupted the sequence of succession and seniority system of the top echelons of the police officer corps.
Bad became worse when, in a weird departure from proper practice, the then deputy commissioner, who was also past the retirement age, was chosen to act as commissioner when Lewis left in the face of an impending legal challenge to his unending tenure. More weirdly, the appointment of a substantive commissioner was deliberately deferred while six officers – Deputy Commissioner Winston Felix; Assistant Commissioners Mohamed Jameer, Paul Slowe, Leon Trim and Edward Wills; and Senior Superintendent Stephen Merai − were nominated to attend an overseas training course in a lottery to determine who the next commissioner would be. For some unannounced reason, Mr Merai never attended the course.
Unfortunately, these not-so-clever manoeuvres were taking place during the troubles on the East Coast. They contributed in no small way to the debilitation of command, the demoralisation of senior officers and the damage to the police force’s law enforcement effort at that difficult time. It would be a blunder to repeat that stratagem.
There has to be a high degree of competence in the command of the police force and an equally high level of public confidence in the leadership of the security sector if the Guyana-Britain Security Sector Reform Action Plan is to achieve its objectives. The administration must consider the promotion to high office in the police force only of persons of proven professional integrity, intelligence and independence. The advancement of those who have had to face legal matters before the courts or are still the subject of incomplete investigations should be avoided.
Political compliance should not be mistaken for professional competence. Although the middle-term objective of the administration’s promotion policy might be to install a tractable commissioner, the long-term result will be the further demoralisation of the officers, the derailment of the reform process and the continuation of a rat race among ambitious careerists who seek to enter high office through the portals of political preferment. As recent history has shown, it could take years to repair the damage to public safety.
