That controversial Transmission Tower brought in under the name of the Royal Grenada Police Force (RGPF) should be thoroughly investigated by the new Minister of National Security who is the Prime Minister himself, Dickon Mitchell.
THE NEW TODAY is advocating strongly for the Prime Minister to look elsewhere to do a proper probe and not rely totally on the Police to investigate their own in this matter.
Information reaching us is that a whistleblower is prepared to “spill his guts” on a number of things that happened in the Communication and Computer section of RGPF in recent years under a particular officer once the conditions are right.
The Prime Minister should create the necessary avenue for this individual to come forward and provide the information including the “Police Transmission Tower” issue as this might just be the opening up of the Pandora’s Box when it comes to wrongdoing within the Police Force.
RGPF is not good at investigating itself especially when it comes to members of the hierarchy of the force.
The most recent case is the so-called 3-member committee that was established by Police Commissioner Edvin Martin to investigate allegations from female police officers of sexual harassment and abuse by their seniors who will punish them for not co-operating in the sex acts being demanded of them.
What has this committee found out? Has this committee interviewed any of the female officers who have complained against some of the seniors?
If the Commissioner of Police is serious then he should have already taken some kind of action against those Members of the High Command who were fingered as the culprits especially the one involved in the nude photos sent to police headquarters on Fort George by a female Traffic Warden inside the Traffic Department of the Grenville Police station.
THE NEW TODAY is doubtful that COP Martin will want to investigate this matter to the fullest because he already knows who the culprit is and will most likely take every step to “hold it down” and not allow it to reach into the public domain.
The police hierarchy also did a nasty and dirty cover-up of the much-publicised case in which a Woman Police Constable wrote a letter to then Commissioner Winston James identifying three Superintendents for sexual molestation in which one of them actually raped her one night at a police compound in St John.
A lukewarm investigation took place by a Junior Superintendent of Police who did not have any authority to investigate other Superintendents who were senior in rank to him.
This is the same nonsense that the current Commissioner of Police is engaged with in the so-called committee that was set up to look into the allegations of sexual misconduct by senior police officers against the young females in the force.
Martin appointed a senior female officer in the force to be on the committee when he ought to know that this officer cannot interview any of her superiors whose names have been called as culprits in the act against the female officers.
If Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell does not act swiftly the police might well be allowed to once again pull wools over our eyes on the Police Transmission Tower at Piton in the St Patrick East constituency.
The individual in the Police Force whose name is called the most is known to be one who is not above board when it comes to his activities as a member of the law enforcement agency.
An independent investigation is needed to look into the whole spectrum of this issue including the entire use of the Tower especially if private sector concerns are involved.
The information seems to suggest that the tower was not paid for by the police, as well as the freight, and the tower is being used by several communication entities other than the police.
Answers are needed to several questions:-
(a) Who authorised the procurement of the tower?
(b) If the police do not own the tower, who does and why was it procured on the RGPF name as consignee?
(c) Who paid for the tower? Who paid the freight?
(d) Is there a contract giving authority for other communication companies on the island to use the tower?
(e) If so, who are they paying for use of the tower and how much?
(f) Who is paying to keep the tower active?
(g) Is the government of Grenada paying huge sums of money to keep the tower in service?
The people of Grenada, Carriacou & Petite Martinique also have a right to know whether the Police were using this Communication Tower at Piton under the previous Keith Mitchell-led government to spy on them.
A foreign newspaper had carried a report two years ago about a fugitive from justice in Germany who had engaged in some kind of discussion with a senior member of the Mitchell government about the acquisition of espionage equipment after the NNP was voted back into office in 2013.
The police officer whose name is called in the Communications Tower issue has had a checkered career as a member of RGPF including a conviction for fraud and is known to be aligned to the Keith Mitchell-led outfit.
Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell in his capacity as Minister of National Security has a duty and responsibility to get at the bottom of this Communication Tower issue especially as the previous government had a deficit when it comes to accountability, transparency and believability.