The National Assembly Monday adopted the Tenth Report of the Standing Committee to address matters relating to the appointment of members to the Police Service Commission. People’s Progressive Party (PPP) member and Chairperson of the Committee on Appointments, Gail Teixeira, moving the motion, said that the appointments of Harold Martin, Franchot Duncan Clarke, Lloyd Alvin Smith, and Dennis Morgan have been made based on nominations that were submitted by four organisations.
“The nominations came from entities and in our best judgement we have to put forward as a Committee, the persons we think will best serve on the Commission,” Teixeira said in reply to arguments raised by the Opposition as it relates to the composition of the Committee.
The Opposition argued that the issue of gender and ethnicity balance was ignored during the selection process and maintained that a woman should have been included on the Commission.
In response, Minister of Health Dr. Leslie Ramsammy said that names were not randomly picked as the Opposition implied, but rather, selections were made from persons that were nominated by entities through a consultative process.
Teixeira further reminded that the question of gender balance did not arise at the appointments of members to the Rights of the Child Commission which has two men and 14 women and the Women and Gender Commission which has one man and 15 women.