RETIRED Assistant Commissioner of Police, Paul Slowe, will this week be sworn in as Chairman of the Police Service Commission (PSC), well-placed sources have confirmed.
The other nominees to the Commission are Retired Assistant Commissioners of Police, Clinton Conway, Vesta Adams, and Claire Jarvis. The swearing in of the nominees will pave the way for the appointment of a substantive Commissioner of Police, deputy police commissioners and other senior officers of the Guyana Police Force.
Slowe and the other nominees’ swearing in will take place after the swearing in of the Public Service Commission today. The Chairman of that Commission automatically becomes a member of the Police Service Commission. The PSC is the constitutional body which is mandated to promote and discipline officers from the rank of inspector to assistant commissioners of police. In the absence of the commission, disciplinary matters would have to be deferred until a commission is constituted.
According to Article 211 (1) of the Constitution, the Commissioner of Police and every Deputy Commissioner of Police shall be appointed by the president acting after meaningful consultation with the leader of the opposition and chairperson of the PSC after the said chairperson has consulted with the other members of the Commission.
In March 2018, former Commissioner of Police Seelall Persaud bade farewell to the Guyana Police Force after serving for 33 years. Since then, Assistant Police Commissioner David Ramnarine has been performing duties. The PSC is also responsible for the appointment and discipline of other members of the Police Force above the rank of Inspector. The power to make appointments to any offices in the Force and discipline ranks below that of Inspector vests in the Police Commissioner.
The life of the commission came to an end in August 2017. The last PSC was headed by Omesh Satyanand. Other members included Carvil Duncan (who was subsequently replaced by Patrick Yarde), Lloyd Smith, Keith John and Harold Martin.
Meanwhile, in April, in the 11th Report of the Committee on Appointments in relation to the appointment of members to the PSC laid in the National Assembly, recommendations were made for Slowe, Conway, Adams and Jarvis to be appointed. 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.
The Police Association, the Association of former members of the Guyana Police Force, the Guyana Association of Professional Social Workers and the National Community Policing Executive were required to submit one nominee each in keeping with Article 210 (1) (c) of the Constitution which requires “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.”
On March 14, 2018, the Association of Former Members of the GPF submitted Slowe and Adams as its nominees while on March 22, 2018, the Guyana Police Association submitted Slowe, Conway, Adams and Jarvis as its nominees. At its 30th meeting held on March 28, 2018, the Committee on Appointments noted that correspondence was 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.
