The Top Cop has to be more than honest and intelligent

Aug 18, 2018 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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At the traffic junction of Camp and Church Streets, there are vendors plying their wares. They are selling beverages, and one of them is even selling accessories for vehicles.
This particular junction is a favourite haunt for persons begging for alms. As soon as a motorist stops at that particular junction, he or she is besieged with persons pushing all manner of objects into your face – or if your window is up, banging on it to beg for alms.
The same thing happens at the junction of Vlissengen Road and Lamaha Street. The usual suspects at that location are now joined by a group of boys who as soon as you stop, begin to clean your windscreens. They do not ask you whether you wish a service. Even if you try to signal them not to touch your vehicle, they still spay their cleaning material and then wipe it off with a rubberized blade.
They demand to be paid, but they fail to realize that they do not have permission to do what they are doing. There is no consent, no offer and acceptance. Therefore, there is no contract; so why is payment being demanded? If anything, those providing the service should be reprimanded for what they are doing, providing unsolicited services.
Another annoying development is the appearance of masquerade bands in the middle of busy thoroughfares. They stand in front of moving vehicles, forcing you to stop while demanding a donation.
They are not promoting any cultural art form. Most of them can hardly dance, but are extorting money from motorists by blocking their path.
The police need to clear the junctions where there are traffic lights of sellers, beggars and hustlers. They need to ban masquerade bands from the main streets in the city and force them to go and strut their stuff within the communities.
The police, however, are doing nothing. The police have become accustomed to turning a blind eye to these molestations which motorists have to encounter each day.
The police have to maintain law and order. And there is no order at many junctions. The police are required to ensure that citizens are not harmed. Persons should not be selling at busy junctions. Their lives are at risk when they have to be moving in between vehicles to sell or beg or to provide unsolicited services.
Yet the police do not realize that they have a responsibility to save these people from possible harm. They also have a responsibility to protect motorists from shysters offering unwanted services and from the extortion by certain persons pretending to be masqueraders.
The problem that faces the police is not just one of leadership, as the President seems to presume. It has to do with the organizational culture of the police force, which allows them to ignore the need to ensure there is order.
The President is saying that he wants a Commissioner who is intelligent and has integrity. If those are the only qualifications which he is seeking he should go and look for some pastors to run the police force. What the police force needs is someone who can change the organizational culture, in which the police ignore certain things which are taking place.
It is hard to determine how the President will determine who is more intelligent than whom and in what areas. No explanations have been given as to how he will decide who is more intelligent than whom.
If someone is not honest, then keeping them away from the Commissioner’s job is not the solution. That person should not be in the force, period.
You can, of course, have the most intelligent and honest person running the force, but that person cannot get the job done. On the other hand, if there are strong systems and rules within the organization, then it should be able to detect wrongdoing and dishonesty, and purge the force of unscrupulous elements.
Unless there is a fair system of appointing persons in the police force, there will be loss of morale, because persons will curry favour with the politicians in order to rise through the ranks.
The President therefore should implement a transparent system of finding a Commissioner of Police. There are human resources firms who specialize in such functions. Other than that, he should go along with the principle of succession by seniority if he wishes to avoid creating more problems for the police.
If appointments are politicized – which is the direction in which things seem to be heading – then the police force will become a hotbed of political opportunism.
If appointments are politicized, then upward career mobility will not be based on performance, but rather on connections. And when this happens, the police end up being no different from the hustlers at the street corners.
The Top Cop has to be more than honest and intelligent. That person has to be able to change the culture of the police force. Otherwise, the police will continue to turn a blind eye to the abuse of motorists at junctions. Lawlessness and disorder will result.

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