Grenada’s 8-month old National Democratic Congress (NDC) government of Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell will soon have to look for a new Commissioner of Police.
Authoritative sources told THE NEW TODAY that the current holder of the post Edvin Martin is expected to tender his resignation from the position that he has held for the past 5 years on the grounds of ill-health.
One well-placed source said that the island’s chief cop did surgery this week at a local private hospital for an undisclosed medical condition.
It is believed to be the second time in recent weeks that Commissioner Martin was forced to do surgery.
Speculation is rife that the previous surgery was done in neighboring Trinidad & Tobago.
According to a source who did not want to be identified, close family members and the doctor looking after Commissioner Martin have been advising him to quit his job to take care of his health.”
The government insider stated that it was not if but only a matter of time before the island was forced to look for a new Commissioner of Police to take over from Martin because of his health issues.
Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell and his Congress administration are said to be concerned about the manner in which the island’s chief cop should demit office and is carefully guarding against giving the public the perception that the new government was “pushing out” him out of the job.
Information has come to hand about a top secret meeting held Friday between Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell, Commissioner Martin and his second-in-command, Deputy Commissioner of Police Don McKenzie at his office on the compound of Parliament Building at Mt Wheldale in St George.
One observer who saw the entourage arrive at the building said that the session was held “for a long time” but had no idea of what was being discussed at this particular location.
A notable absentee at the meeting was the other Deputy Commissioner of Police Tafawa Pierre, the husband of former Education Minister Emmalin Pierre who served in the post in the 2018-22 period of the rival New National Party (NNP) government of defeated Prime Minister Dr. Keith Mitchell.
Speculation is rife that one of the decisions taken at the meeting was to grant Commissioner Martin additional leave of absence from the job to do surgery and to hand over power for the time being to Deputy Commissioner MacKenzie.
Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell has been resisting calls from certain local quarters for the removal of Pierre from the top position within RGPF given his perceived alignment with the opposition NNP.
The government insider dropped hints that the island might be forced to look outside to recruit a new Commissioner of Police to replace Martin due to the lack of talent within the hierarchy of the Police Force.
Speculation is rife that morale has been very low within the rank and file of the force as the Prime Minister has not made significant changes in the hierarchy of RGPF.
The only notable change is the promotion of Superintendent of Police Don McKenzie to Deputy Commissioner of Police.
In its last weekend issue, THE NEW TODAY said it was time for the Transformational Agenda as advocated by PM Dickon Mitchell and Congress “to descend on RGPF and put in place a team that can give better leadership, management and guidance in National Security.”
It went on to say in its editorial, “THE NEW TODAY is calling for the recruitment of a qualified and capable senior police officer with an excellent track record from either Barbados or The Bahamas to come in with a small team of about three others to help in rebuilding RGPF which is badly lacking in capacity at the top at the moment.
“This individual must be given a free hand in assessing those officers within the local Police Force who can then be put in the right position to run RGPF within a 3-year timeframe.”
“THE NEW TODAY is hopeful that a decision will be made in short order to fix the problem that is in RGPF in keeping with the mandate given by the electorate just over seven months ago to change the status quo.”