MYLES LARODA DEFENDS THE POLICE PROMOTIONS

Those who watched the career of the late Paul Farquharson know that he spent many of his formative years in the Royal Bahamas Police Force as the aide-de- campe to the late Governor General Sir Gerald Cash. From he left Sir Gerald’s service, he had the rise to Commissioner of Police. The fact is that when you get these high profile details with the leaders of the country, you end up as high level police officers or at least that is the expectation.  Then there was the late BK Bonamy who was Commissioner of Police for the longest in the post-independence period. He spent almost his entire career in the Security and Intelligence Branch of the Force and ended up becoming Commissioner of Police. Who can forget the late Sir Albert Miller who should have been Commissioner of Police instead of the late Salathiel Thompson but everyone knew that once the PLP took over the man for the job would not be Sir Albert but Mr. Thompson. Sir Albert ended up being one of the most successful businessmen in the country, knighthood and all, but he to his end would have given it all up to be commissioner of police. Myles LaRoda is now the police minister and the question of who got promoted was put to him after the recent announcements.  Looks like he spoke outside the House of Assembly to Eyewitness News on Wednesday 14 October. Surely, there were deserved officers that were overlooked and surely there are some who should not have been promoted. The woman who helped to plot the case against Shane Gibson is one who should have been fired from the force instead of promoted.  However, the point of the walk down memory lane is to say that police promotions are a mixture of merit, history, longevity and politics.  That’s just the system, and no matter who gets promoted or how many, there will always be complaints. Finally, you get to be commissioner by a political decision. That should be clear so that those who are arguing that you should have this or that experience in the ranks of the Force prior to promotions: nice of them to say so but it’s not necessary for the top job. Desirable but not necessary.  The present Commissioner superseded other officers and no doubt a politician had to make that decision.