No contracts awarded to gangsters for police stations – T&T Top Cop

(Trinidad Express) POLITICIANS are wicked!

This was the response by acting Commissioner of Police Stephen Williams yesterday when asked about reports that gangsters have been awarded contracts to repair police stations in the Port of Spain Division.

In a telephone interview with the Express, Williams said: “Nobody resembling a gangster has ever been or would ever be given a contract by the Police Service.”

Williams clarified his statement, saying politicians make utterances without even identifying the implications of those utterances.

“This is about the Police Service. The Commissioner of Police is responsible for the management of the Police Service and we have not given any contract to any gang leader and we will not give a gang leader or member.”

Williams said of the four police stations in the Port of Spain Division, no work is being done at St Clair, Central Police Station nor Woodbrook Police Station, adding that Besson Street Police Station is due to move soon.

“There are concerns out there in the public domain about the construction of a police post on Duncan Street, that is under the Housing Development Corporation (HDC),” he said.

Contacted for a comment on the issue, HDC managing director Jearlean John said she would not do the work of a reporter and invited the Express to go to Duncan Street to find out who was the person that received the contract to construct the police post.

“Do you think that a gangster would put ‘I’m a gangster’,” she asked.

Williams said some things affect people’s character and their office, adding that he was hurt by the implications the police were awarding contracts to gangsters.

In an article in yesterday’s Guardian newspaper, Minister of National Security Gary Griffith said he knew gangsters were awarded contracts to repair police stations in the Port of Spain Division, and if they do not turn from their illegal ways they would be blacklisted.