Last Updated on 24.03.2015

Published Date

Mr. George said while the police action caused “tremendous inconvenience,” the officers have issues they have been negotiating for, for some time, but this should not have impacted citizens in the way it did.

He said while it may not have necessarily been the best way to approach their problem, the action showed deficiencies in leadership in the Police Service.

“We the ordinary citizen, we are not the ones who have stalled their negotiations. We are not the ones who have them in this position, so why are you punishing us? What do we have to do with that? It’s really unfair in that sense but at the end of the day, I still think that the top of the Police Service, I think we have the Acting, Acting Commissioner, which is Mrs. Daly, I think maybe this was an opportunity for her to step forth and show that type of leadership from in front and say: ‘Hey, listen, I am on top of this, I am going to do A, B and C and I will alleviate the concerns of the public. I will ensure that people’s lives, work, their jobs, are not disrupted unduly.'”

The Attorney said the roadblocks and stop and search exercises would have been authorised by someone in authority. He is calling for answers.

“Is it that all the respective Divisional Heads authorised this independently and it just so coincided that they all chose the same day and same time to have these exercises? Do these Divisional Heads report to anyone above? Of course, they do. So is it that they did so without notifying the very Head of the Police Service that ‘look, we are doing this coordinated activity and it is going to take place at the same time all around the country’ and therefore obviously you must know what is the likely effect.”