…to COP?
Well…well…well. Here we go again!! President Granger has decided on who will be the top COP very early in the day, and it was just a matter of genuflecting to the forms!! First, all GPF officers — incumbents and those in the hierarchy — had to be plucked from contention by hook or crook. Or, as in this case, by a crooked hook!! The Police Service Commission (PSC), which has constitutional responsibility for making decisions on the top tier of the GPF, was decommissioned and left in abeyance. That left the field open to kill the cat by other means.
The top guns were discredited by a one-man CoI headed by retired Asst Commissioner Paul Slowe. It was more of a hatchet job than an Inquiry…but since only the President had to be satisfied, and that was what he wanted, who’s to complain?? The top COP himself was sent on “leave” for such an extended period, some thought he had been leavened!! The second step was to reconstitute a PSC so that the fella preselected by President Granger could be appointed according to “the law”!!
So who does Granger appoint as Chair of the PSC? No one but the one-man COP lynching crew, Paul Slowe!! But not before setting out the outcome determinative criteria Slowe and his Crew must use to make their selection. This, of course, is just like when Granger decided Article 161 (2) meant only a judge can become Chair of GECOM. But when pushed, said “judge-like qualities” like integrity and impartiality would do!! The question, of course, was who’d decide on the requisite quantum of “integrity and impartiality”? Granger’s eventual choice showed HE would – and his bar wasn’t much higher than the ones used for doing the Limbo!!
In the case of the Top Cop, Granger says “intelligence and being unbribeable” are the criteria. So will an IQ test be conducted on all the nominees and applicants? Or will there be only one nominee, like with the Energy Czar or GECOM Chair? Will this be the standard IQ test that’s applied to everyone, or will there be one specifically designed to identify “police intelligence”??
The trickier one will be the test for being “unbribeable”? Since there’s one school of thought that insists ‘everyone has his price”, will the budget set aside a sufficiently large sum to test whether though applicants’ spirits may be willing, their flesh is much more pliable? After all, we know that with, say, drugs, big bucks are always in the offing to law enforcement types.
We certainly can’t go by the history of any person. It could be they weren’t tempted by a big enough bribe!!
…Bridge sole sourcing
Back when they were in the Opposition – and not quite joined at the hip with the PNC – the AFC insisted there must be a Public Procurement Commission (PPC) in place to stop the hanky-panky they’d accused the PPP of committing. After they sidled into office, it took them years – and much protests by civil society etc – to get a PPC in place. It was headed by the wife of the former head of the PNC, and many cynics felt that was the end of that good intention!
But sometimes – due to quantum fluctuations or whatever celestial forces – strange things happen. And one just did!! The PPC just announced that when Minister of Public Infrastructure, James Patterson, decided to single source a design for the new Demerara Harbour Bridge, he’d broken the procurement law!! The Opposition had long pointed this out! But who listens to THEM??
Well, now it’s the PPC headed by someone who certainly can’t be accused of anti-PNC bias!! So what will it be?? Interminable internal investigations like with “I is” Broomes??
Or just plain, old fashioned stone walling?
…Cricket fans
If there’s one place where you don’t need to worry about bribes, it is at Providence Stadium, to get the fans to go berserk about their Warriors!!
Love means being unbribeable!!
