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alexk
Guest
When Gary Griffith assumes his role as this country’s substantive Police Commissioner, he will have to deal with the abuse of the overtime and leave systems in the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service (TTPS) by officers, as well as other corrupt practices in the service, including senior officers tipping-off criminals about raids.
According to a report by the Police Manpower Audit Committee (PMAC), officers have been abusing the systems, resulting in tens of millions of taxpayers’ dollars being spent annually without proper documentation and “low numbers of officers available on any given day to carry out policing duties”.
The Prof Ramesh Deosaran-chaired PMAC, termed these two issues the “twin disasters” of the TTPS, stating that because of their serious manpower implications “swift attention is required”.
According to the PMAC report, overtime expenditure for the TTPS for the period 2013/2014 to 2014/2015 amounted to $288,864,708.
However, because of the “dire condition” of the TTPS’ Human Resource Unit regarding “record collection, storage and retrieval”, including documents still being stored in cardboard boxes, the PMAC was unable to get a total breakdown of that figure.
In terms of leave, the PMAC said officers are “finding cleverer ways of beating the system to the detriment of the police service” and working “outside jobs” to boost their incomes.
The PMAC report said many instances were noted where officers who were on sick leave were found to be working elsewhere or were not “really in need of the leave”.
The PMAC noted that one situation was unearthed where a police officer submitted sick leave documents for 298 days in 2016. There were 366 days in 2016.
On January 5, 2017, Cabinet appointed the PMAC “to examine the extent to which the manpower strength of the Service is meeting its major objectives and whether its human resource capacity is sufficient”.
The committee submitted its report, titled “Now is the time, no sacred cows”, to Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley on October 17 last year.
Speaking in the Parliament on Monday, as the nomination of Griffith for Commissioner of Police was being debated, Rowley reflected on some of the atrocities highlighted in the PMAC report.
“If you do not want nightmares, or if you want nightmares, read that as bedside reading in the country,” Rowley said as he promised to make the report available to the population.
Rowley said the substance of the report is why the Government did not support the nomination of Stephen Williams for the post of Police Commissioner. Williams has been acting in the post since August 7, 2012.
The Sunday Guardian was able to obtain the report, which comes in two volumes totalling 700-plus pages.
TTPS in a “wounded state”
The PMAC report stated that the T&T Police Service is in a very dire state.
“The TTPS is in a very troubled and wounded state. Troubled, mainly because of the complex network of problems facing it and wounded, due to its continued inability to rescue and recover itself,” the report stated.
More than half of some 500 police officers surveyed in the TTPS said they felt the organisation was not satisfactorily organised, the MPAC report noted.
“This phenomenon was highlighted by the data reviewed by the Audit Committee. One such avenue of data, the Committee’s Police Survey, which involved 500 officers randomly selected across stratified ranks, suggests the need for help. For example, when asked whether they thought the TTPS is satisfactorily organised to deal effectively with crime, over half (54%) of the officers said ‘very unsatisfactory’ or ‘unsatisfactory’,” the report stated.
The PMAC said “given its public safety and national security duties, the reform of the TTPS has to be treated as an emergency situation”.
According to the PMAC, corruption has contaminated the TTPS over the years. Several senior officers agreed with this conclusion.
“During the committee’s stakeholder interviews, several senior officials from the TTPS and related intelligence units explained the disturbing extent to which a particular type of corruption has contaminated the TTPS over the years.
That is, when certain police investigations or raids are being confidentially planned, advance warnings (leaks) are given to the targets of these planned police actions.
The officials said such ‘tip-offs’ can only come from inside the planning team itself,” the report stated.
“Ironically, in the committee’s Police Survey, over 40% of all ranks and ages of officers stated that corruption in the Police Service exists either ‘very much’ or ‘much’ with a higher proportion of the young officers feeling this way.
In fact, over 48% of officers with less than ten (10) years’ service felt that corruption in the service exists ‘very much’ or ‘much’.”
The police officers said what seems to be exacerbating the situation is that issues are not being addressed in a timely manner.
“There have been repeated complaints by officers that charges of indiscipline and corruption drag on for several years without resolution. One such case, as submitted by the Trinidad and Tobago Police Social and Welfare Association to the Audit Committee, was called 55 times between 2014 and 2016 and the officer was not served with summons 41 times.
Of the ten times a summons was served, the officer appeared nine, and 30 of the 55 times the hearing was called, the tribunal did not have a quorum.
It should be noted, however, that officers who serve on tribunals are required to perform other police duties in addition to handling disciplinary matters,” the PMAC report stated.
Confidential records stored haphazardly
Of grave concern for the PMAC was the abuse of the overtime and leaves by police officers.
“In spite of the assurances of the Prime Minister to the committee that all reports and documents required for the execution of this audit exercise would be provided by the relevant agencies, the committee faced significant challenges in this respect. The Human Resource System of the TTPS is in a dire condition regarding record collection, storage and retrieval.
As such, a manual-driven system stored in cardboard boxes in 2017 will not suffice,” the PMAC report said.
The PMAC said it experienced difficulty in obtaining such records in the case of extended sick leave, overtime allowances and extra duty payments.
“Noting the time constraints involved, the committee approached the Ministry of Finance for records that should have been properly stored by the TTPS. Nevertheless, from the data retrieved for the period 2014 to 2017, the TTPS’ commuted overtime payments increased from $39 million in 2014 to $43 million in 2015, to $58 million in 2016 (that is a 49% increase from 2014 to 2016) and to $36 million as of June 2017. This data represented a total of 1,300 officers and the commuted overtime reflected 53% of their base salary,” the report stated.
“Overtime expenditure for the TTPS for the period 2013/2014 to 2014/2015 amounted to $288,864,708.00. Despite receiving this overall figure, the committee was unable to obtain a breakdown of it by rank, gender, etc. As such, a deeper analysis of records for police stations, units and branches would be required to determine the specific reasons for overtime incurred.
Despite receiving information on extended sick leave for 2016, the Human Resource Unit failed to provide the committee with a year by year trend, thus, further analyses could not be done.
This matter also requires additional inquiry as the 2016 data, for example, shows one officer submitted sick leave documents for 298 days,” it stated.
The PMAC report said the way reports were stored left it open to the possibility of manipulation.
“The PMAC’s own observations uncovered that files and boxes with such confidential personnel matters are stacked and stored haphazardly all over the place leaving it open to be interfered with.
Also, the long delays in data entering and storing such information into the computerised system are major contributors as well,” the report stated.
“As a result of all the leave abuses and other such serious human resource problems in the TTPS, there may be the need to completely overhaul this system as its chaos, inefficiency and wrongdoing are negatively affecting the entire police service. This is despite the TTPS having customised software to put its house in order but for whatever reason, it has not gotten off the ground as it ought to,” it stated.