The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Senior Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

NATIONAL Security Minister Wayne Munroe said the Police Complaints Inspectorate, a civilian organisation that should provide oversight of the Royal Bahamas Police Force’s Complaints and Corruption Unit, has likely lacked the staff required to function properly.

He said the inspectorate is the only body under his portfolio from which he has yet to receive a briefing.

“The current life of the Police Inspectorate, and they’re appointed by the Governor General, expires June 2022,” he said at a press conference yesterday. “The current chairman is Tanya McCartney who has been in touch with me, but I’ve not met with them formally.

“They’ve sent a small report which I would wish to discuss with them but the inspectorate is supposed to have oversight of Complaints and Corruption. The inspectorate is supposed to be able to review the handling by Complaints and Corruption of citizen’s complaints. The inspectorate has to have on it at least one person who is a lawyer of at least ten years standing or a retired policeman who retired at the rank of superintendent or above.

“I cannot say without having a briefing from them whether they have been carrying out the statutory mandate. I can say that the commissioner of police has advised that during the tenure of Mrs McCartney, she did make requests of Complaints and Corruption for information. She did in fact do that and that’s a part of the function. “Once I would have met with them, I would know fully what their function has been over the past year.”

The Police Complaints Inspectorate was established by the Police Act in 2009 but little is known of its work. In its annual human rights report, the United States has repeatedly cited the lack of available information about the body.

Mr Munroe said members of the inspectorate have indicated they want the body reformed.

“They did indicate that they want to move to a complaints system a lot like what they have in Jamaica in Intercom,” he said, “but having looked myself specifically at the police inspectorate I’m not sure that that isn’t a body itself that is independent of the police. In fact, it’s independent even of me as the minister.

“So the question will be, have they been sufficiently aggressive in the execution of their duties? Having looked at the makeup of it…I don’t see in my ministry the administrative support for it to perhaps be acting properly. You have part-time appointees to this board, this inspectorate. I see no dedicated administrative personnel of the sort who could grade, evaluate and put together case files with summaries on them for the inspectorate so that is a weakness in the ministry we will have to address. If you have part-time people doing things you have to understand their limitations. So for every part-timer, like the Bar Council which I served on previously, we’re part-time but we have a full administrative staff to put together things for us. That is lacking for this inspectorate from what I can see. I do not understand why it hasn’t been addressed thus far, but we intend to address it.”