(Trinidad Express) The Police Service Commission (PSC) has requested a face-to-face session with Police Commissioner Dwayne Gibbs before deciding on his fate.
The PSC will also meet with the two deputy Commissioners, Jack Ewatski and Stephen Williams, before completing its appraisal of the performance of the top three members of the Police Service.
The three men have been in office for the past 15 months and their performance has been criticised by various interest groups in society.
The meeting “would clarify several aspects of the performance of the Commissioner and his two deputies,” PSC chairman Ramesh Deosaran told the Express in an interview following yesterday’s emergency meeting of the PSC at Henry Street, Port of Spain.
The face-to-face meeting will take place next Thursday at 10 a.m.
Deosaran said the PSC met in emergency session for about three hours.
The meeting included all members—deputy chairman Addison Khan; members – Jacqueline Cheesman, Martin George, Kenneth Parker and Deosaran—together with director of Personnel Administration Gloria Edwards-Joseph and director of the PSC Secretariat Kerry Sumesar-Rai.
Deosaran, in response to questions, made it clear that crime statistics would not be the only yardstick for measuring the performance of the Commissioner and the two deputy Commissioners.
“The crime statistics themselves are quite problematic because a lot depends on how many people actually report crimes and how efficiently the crime statistics are compiled and submitted to the Commissioner’s office,” he said.
Deosaran said if the PSC is to use crime statistics in evaluating the performance of the CoP and his deputies, it would also have to examine the detection rate and the conviction rate.
Both rates are abysmally low.
Deosaran added that the appraisal would be conducted on the basis of three other important factors. The first is public confidence in the Police Service and in the Commissioner of Police. The second is the extent to which the Police Service is being made into an efficient and effective organisation. The third measurement is improvements in road safety, he said.
He added that the Commissioner and his deputies have agreed that these are proper critieria for evaluating their performance.
“So while there is great anxiety about crime statistics, there is much more to our appraisal than just the crime figures which are themselves subject to a number of aberrations,” Deosaran said.
Asked whether the PSC would factor into its appraisal how the Government rates the performance of Gibbs, Deosaran said : “No. We have to stick strictly to our remit. The Commission is reluctant to go outside of its constitutional remit.”
Deosaran said depending on how the Commissioner of Police and his deputies respond at next Thursday’s meeting, the Commission would be able to arrive at a timetable for the completion of the appraisals.
Deosaran said the PSC also asked the Commissioner of Police to submit to it, before January 30, several outstanding reports, documents and other information, which the PSC have been requesting in order to move forward with the appraisal exercise.
He said the PSC had been requesting these documents for some time now.
“We believe that the time has come for us to bring some closure to this matter and present a proper appraisal,” he said.
Deosaran said the Commission had a variety of pressing matters that had quickly come upon it, including several evaluation reports of the Police Commissioner and the two deputies.
