RETIRED Assistant Commissioner of Police, Paul Slowe, is among the nominees recommended for appointment to the Police Service Commission (PSC).

In the 11th Report of the Committee on Appointments in relation to the appointment of members to the PSC laid in the National Assembly on Thursday, recommendations were also made for other retired Assistant Commissioners of Police, Clinton Conway, Vesta Adams and Claire Jarvis. The nominations were put forward by the Committee on Appointments chaired by Minister of Social Cohesion, Dr George Norton. According to the report, discussions on the subject began on December 15, 2017.

On January 31, 2018, the Committee which comprises Ministers Amna Ally, David Patterson, Catherine Hughes, and Annette Ferguson of the APNU+AFC coalition government, along with Gail Teixeira, Juan Edghill, Ganga Persaud and Bhagmattie Veerasammy of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) agreed that in an effort to expedite the process, Dr Norton would enquire from subject Minister Khemraj Ramjattan whether the Police Association, the Association of former members of the Guyana Police Force, the National Commission on Law and Order and the National Community Policing Executive is functional.

An initial deadline of February 13, 2018 was set for the entities to be written to requesting nominations. However, there were some challenges relating to communicating with Minister Ramjattan on the functionality of the four bodies. As a result, a letter was penned to the Public Security Minister and on March 7, 2018, Dr Norton informed the Committee that of the four entities, only one–the National Commission of Law and Order–was non-functional.

At the said meeting, the Committee indicated that the three functioning bodies were required to submit one nominee and agreed to include the Guyana Association of Professional Social Workers in keeping with Article 210 (1) (c) of the Constitution which states “four members appointed by the President upon nomination by the National Assembly after it has consulted such bodies as appear to it to represent the majority of the members of the police Force and any such body it deems fit.”

The four bodies were formally invited to make nominations and submit the bio data information of each nominee. Letters were dispatched on March 8, 2018 for that purpose. On March 14, 2018, the Association of Former Members of the GPF submitted Paul Slowe and Vesta Adams as its nominees while on March 22, 2018, the Guyana Police Association submitted Slowe, Clinton Conway, Adams and Claire Jarvis as its nominees.

At its 30th meeting held on March 28, 2018, the Committee on Appointments noted that correspondence were received only from two of the four bodies invited to submit nominees. “After exhausting the process of notification, the Committee agreed to proceed with the appointment of members for the commission”. Thereafter, the members present unanimously agreed that the four nominated persons would be nominated for appointment to the PSC.

At the 31st meeting of the committee on April 11, 2018, members of the Committee on Appointments adopted the 11th report on the appointment of members of the PSC unanimously. “The committee recommends that Mr Paul Esmond Slowe, D.S.M, retired Assistant Commissioner of Police; Mr Clinton Andrew Conway, Retired Assistant Commissioner of Police; Ms Vesta Geneva Adams, retired Assistant Commissioner of Police; and Ms Claire Alexis Jarvis, retired Assistant Commissioner of Police be signified as the National Assembly’s choice to the President for appointment as members in the Police Service Commission,” the report stated. Government had urged the Committee on Appointments to speed up the process for the selection of nominees for the PSC. The tenure of the previous appointees expired last August.