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You can’t cure corruption by ignoring it
– President Granger tells Police Conference
President David Granger
“Corruption like a malignant cancer cannot be cured by being ignored.” This was the firm declaration of President David Granger yesterday as he delivered piercing remarks at the 2018 Police Officers Conference at the Eve Leary Police Officers Mess.
The Head of State wasted no time in amplifying the important role of the Police Force even as he underscored his ‘no tolerance’ stance against corruption within its realm. He, moreover, made it clear to his attentive audience of police ranks of various levels that “if corruption is concealed it will continue…”
The Head of State emphasised yesterday that minuscule action will not suffice in addressing the issue of corruption in the Police Force. As such the President assertively intoned that transferring corrupt officers from one branch to another is certainly not the answer to addressing such challenges within the Force.
The Police Force has overtime had cause to discipline a number of its ranks that have found themselves on the wrong side of the law. Among the recent cases is that of Head of the Special Weapons and Tactic [SWAT] Unit, Deputy Superintendent Motie Dookie, who has since been demoted after he became the subject of an alcohol smuggling investigation.
President Granger in considering how the Force has dealt with corrupt officers in the past, underscored that cases of corruption cannot merely be handled by, “posting him from one division to another or demoting him from one rank to another… [this] cannot guarantee that he will change his wicked ways.”
The President asserted yesterday that even “the best efforts of the Office of Professional Responsibility and of the Police Complaints Authority could be undermined by corrupt senior officers who condone the misconduct of their subordinates. They do the Force no good but rather damage the careers and worst yet endanger the lives of other police [ranks] and jeopardise public security,” stressed President Granger.
Even as he repeated the aphorism that ‘a fish rots from its head down’, President Granger underscored that this is suggestive that “misconduct at the lowest level of an organisation is caused usually by lack of leadership, neglect or misconduct at the highest levels.”
Moreover, the President in his deliberation yesterday recognised that since the Police Force is the principal agency of the State, concerned with ensuring law and order, it should, at all times, pride itself with doing just.
According to President Granger, the Police Act essentially tasks the Police Force with, among other things, the prevention and detection of crime, the preservation of law and order and, the preservation of the peace.
Even as he emphasised that the heavy burden of the Police Force has multiple functions in this nation, the President observed that “These statutory functions are necessary but they are not sufficient if the Police Force is to win the fight against crime, against disorder and violence and to continuously ensure that only persons who are ‘fit and proper’ are appointed to the highest offices of the Force’s administrational operation to direct the performance of these functions.”
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