The Tribune

By KHRISNA RUSSELL

Deputy Chief Reporter

krussell@tribunemedia.net

THE Reserves arm of the Royal Bahamas Police Force was used as a “dumping ground” for retired officers, highlighting that management and leadership was a challenge, opposition leader Philip “Brave” Davis has said.

While he said he didn’t agree with all of the findings of a recent report into the division, the Cat Island, Rum Cay and San Salvador MP seemed to side with the Reserves, telling reporters it was clear they had been broadsided by the findings of the investigation which suggested they cheated the public purse.

The report further brings to light tensions between the Reserves and the substantive police force, Mr Davis said.

However one thing is certain, according to Mr Davis, the RBPF as a whole neither its Reserves were used for political advantage by the former Christie administration. He said the evidence was available to back his claim.

Commanders or supervisors who signed time sheets for police reservists who failed to work may face disciplinary action if the recommendations of a recent branch audit are followed, The Tribune confirmed Wednesday.

Due to improper management of timesheets, the Reserves audit found it was possible for the police force to disburse more than $800,000 monthly and just over $9.8m annually on reservist salaries, the audit tabled in the House of Assembly on Wednesday said.

“We must always recall that if we go over the last 20 to30 years the Free National Movement have been more in control than the PLP,” Mr Davis said when The Tribune asked him to respond to the assertion that the Reserves arm seemed to mushroom into an uncontrollable operation used for political means.

“No I don’t like getting in this political blame game and I keep telling them the time for ‘blamestorming’ has to come to an end. We need to be brainstorming to address the challenges that have been systematic over the years and let’s look forward to how we can improve what there is.

“At the end of the day the one thing that has come out of the report that has some merit is the fact that the reservist regime seemed to have become the dumping ground for retired police officers, which speaks to perhaps another challenge that we are not addressing and that is how police officers organising themselves personally and taking into account when they will be retired and what is life after retirement and those are some of the things that we need to be looking at.”

He continued: “I don’t know [what they mean] when they say being used for political advantages and purposes. That’s just again an unfortunate view that is being taken rather than looking at what the true issues are in that whole regime.

“The regime has been around from 1965 and challenges were just allowed to brew. Practices and protocols were allowed to just evolve.”

Mr Davis also said there should be some form of consultation with the Reserves.

“I don’t know whether I share all the views of the findings,” he said earlier in the interview with reporters. “But what we do know is that it appears that management and leadership for reservist has been a challenge and how you address that?

“There is sort of a broadside that I don’t know whether that is fair in the sense that there is the suggestion that reservists were really cheating the public purse and once I would have completed my review of the report I may have a more substantive statement to make on that regard.

“Perhaps someone needs to speak to reservists as a body to determine exactly what they believe of the report because that is one view and we need to understand those who experienced the role that they play as reservists, how they are treated as reservists [and] how they are assimilated.

“[There] might be an issue of whether they are perceived as what they ought to be by the substantive force. So there are a number of issues that seem to have arisen that speak to tensions that exist between what I call the substantive force and the reservists as a force that may be feeding a lot of what the conclusions might be.”

The audit investigation sparked a crackdown, according to the report, which noted the commissioner of police has requested only commanders sign off on timesheets.