Who will be giving assistant Police Commissioner Wayne Dick assignments following the controversial buying out of his pre-retirement leave and what will be the nature of these assignments? These were questions raised by Opposition leader Dr Keith Rowley during a political meeting in Point Cumana yesterday.
He said the decision to purchase Dick’s leave although the recommendation was rejected by acting Police Commissioner Stephen Williams was a blatant example of Government interfering in the affairs of the Police Service. This, Rowley added, was very worrisome. “What I do know is that somebody else is running the Police Service,” Rowley said.
“If the deputy commissioner of police is not recommended by the police commissioner so as to buy out his leave and nobody takes the police commissioner seriously, and Cabinet then buys out the leave of the deputy police commissioner then the Cabinet is running the Police Service.”
Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, who was in New York attending the United Nations General Assembly at the time the decision was made, has since deferred the buyout to a Cabinet sub-committee in the wake of concerns raised by Williams and Police Social and Welfare Association president Inspector Anand Ramesar.
In questioning what would now be Dick’s functions, Rowley painted a scenario which involved himself.
“Suppose the assignment is to get Rowley in trouble before the general election? Suppose I am coming down the bus route one night and this commissioner stop me and he look in my car and he open the back door and he go in the trunk and close it back and I gone home and when I reach home a couple of police officers come to my door, open my trunk and it have a bag of weed inside there. What is my position? “This commissioner could be beholden to the Cabinet and the prime minister,” Rowley said.