Top cop should act on PSC’s promotion list – Paul Slowe

Jul 07, 2021 News

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⁃ threatens legal actions

Kaieteur News – Despite being suspended, Police Service Commission (PSC) Chairman, Paul Slowe, has written to acting Police Commissioner, Nigel Hoppie, asking him to act on the promotion list for Police Officers that the PSC had published. Slowe also threatened legal action against Hoppie if he failed to respond by noon yesterday to his letter. However, up to press time, the Police Commissioner had not responded to Slowe.

On June 16, 2021, President, Ifraan Ali, suspended the members of the PSC including Slowe, a retired Assistant Commissioner of Police.
Despite his suspension, in a letter dated Monday June 5, 2021, Slowe wrote to Hoppie, instructing him to prepare a Special Promotion Order. He stated in his letter, “As you are aware, you are required to cause a Special Promotion Order to be prepared so that the promoted ranks and other members of the Force can be informed of the promotions. The Quartermaster also uses the Special Promotion Order to issue badges of rank to the newly promoted ranks.”
According to Slowe, if Hoppie does not act on the letter by ensuring the preparation of the Special Promotion Order, he is defying the ‘legitimate’ action of the PSC by not promoting the ranks of the Guyana Police Force (GPF).
The letter also outlined that the suspended PSC expects the Police Commissioner to publish the Special Promotions Order and to instruct the Quartermaster to issue the newly promoted ranks with their badges of rank. Slowe then threatened legal action against Hoppie for him to obey the PSC and noted in his letter that he has until noon yesterday to respond.
It was also noted in Slowe’s letter that PSC’s lawyer, Selwyn Pieters, has sent a letter to President Ali informing him that his purported suspension of the members of the PSC was unconstitutional and of no legal effect. It was also stated that the President was informed that the PSC would continue to do its work until the end of its term in August 2021.
According to reports, Slowe was not only suspended from the PSC but charges were brought against him and other retired and serving members of the PSC in the Georgetown Magistrates’ Courts.
Those charged are retired officers Assistant Commissioner, Clinton Conway; Assistant Commissioner, Claude Whittaker; Senior Superintendent George Fraser; Senior Superintendent Michael Sutton and Superintendent Mark Gilbert. Other serving members of the GPF charged are, former Police Finance Officer, Senior Superintendent Marcelene Washington; Assistant Commissioner, Royston Andries-Junor; and Police Finance Officer, Assistant Superintendent Marlon Kellman.
The Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU), an arm of the GPF, brought the charges against them.
The joint charge alleges that Slowe, Conway, Whittaker, Fraser, Gilbert, Andries-Junor, Washington, Sutton and Kellman between March 1, 2019 and July 7, 2020, at the police headquarters, Eve Leary, conspired together with others to defraud the GPF of $10,056,000. The charge further alleges that Slowe, Conway, Whittaker, Fraser and Gilbert were paid the sum of $10,056,000, without following the correct procedures, in allegedly reviewing the Force’s Standing Orders, which had already been reviewed.
Moreover, Slowe is also accused of sexually assaulting a female officer – he denied the allegations publicly but has not returned to Guyana to face the charges.
Kaieteur News had reported during last month that President Ali had suspended the PSC after he had followed the constitutional process involving each member being asked to show cause why he should not be suspended. The members of the PSC were informed of their suspensions via letters.
On June 28, 2021, the case filed by Senior Superintendent of Police, Calvin Brutus, to challenge the Police Service Commission’s (PSC) 2020 promotion list on the basis of what he termed as “unfair criteria for elevating officers,” has been thrown out by Chief Justice (Ag), Roxane George-Wiltshire.
Brutus had moved to the High Court in a bid to block promotions for senior members of the Guyana Police Force (GPF) until the decision not to promote him was recanted. Among other things, Brutus complained that the PSC’s decision not to promote police officers with pending disciplinary complaints regardless of the nature or seriousness of such complaints, “perpetuates a permanent injustice” against him and others who are scheduled for promotions.
However in her ruling, Chief Justice (Ag) George-Wiltshire essentially said that there is nothing unlawful about considering disciplinary matters when making a decision whether to promote a police rank or not.
Moments after the court’s decision was rendered by the Chief Justice, the PSC released a list of officers who were promoted in 2020.
This triggered a statement issued on behalf of the Government by Attorney General (AG), Anil Nandlall, S.C. He said that the Government would not recognise the 2020 list of police promotions issued, since the PSC had been suspended by President, Irfaan Ali, since June 16, last.
The statement further noted that the President’s decision can only be rescinded, revoked, set-aside or reversed by the President himself, or by a court of competent jurisdiction. Nandlall stayed that the attempt of the PSC, therefore, to countermand, disobey and disregard the President’s decision, not only amounts to an effrontery to the highest executive office in the land, but also is simply absurd.
As such, he noted that the purported list of promotions by the PSC would be ignored.

 

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