Commissioner of Police Mark Collins has said that the bureaucratic structure within the Royal Virgin Islands Police is very frustrating and needs to be reviewed.
Commissioner Collins was speaking during the Commission of Inquiry (COI) where he revealed that the bureaucratic nature of the force is stalling a number of initiatives that are urgently needed by the force.
These include the procedures to hire staff and to get critical equipment for members of the force.
“What I found quite frustrating coming into the role is the fact that we’ve got the Governor’s Office, the Deputy Governor’s Office, the Premier’s Office and we’ll probably come onto it as I give my evidence but simple things like filling a vacancy can take me months and months and months. Simple things like requiring funding to fix a broken boat or to buy a piece of kit or equipment can take months and months and the system I think, I respectfully suggest, does need to be reviewed,” Commissioner Collins stated.
“Operationally it’s very difficult because I’m sometimes reporting to the Governor’s Office and having to re-report to the Deputy Governor’s Office and then it’s slightly disjointed. So, for instance I report to the Governor directly on a weekly basis, some things that I discuss and agree with him, then need to be reverted back to the Deputy Governor’s Office because they’ve got primacy over that side of the business,” he further explained.
RVIPF heavily understaffed
The commissioner also said that his force which presently consists of 270 officers is understaffed with a total of 67 vaccines which are in dire need of being filled.
He said while a budget is allocated for the salaries of new police officers, the procedure of having to first seek approval from the Office of the Deputy Governor, then to the Treasury and finally to the Finance Ministry takes a very long time.
“So every vacancy that I’ve got would need to be requested through the Deputy Governor’s Office and then onto the Ministry of Finance then for approval. And that’s even with the vacancy that I’ve got with a full time equivalent,” Collins stated.
He added, “I’ve got the agreement that my full-time equivalent makes up but yet if a police officer retires or transfers somewhere else, I need to get authority to recruit into that post and that can take months. I’ll actually make the point that I’m running on 67 vacancies which effectively is a fifth of my workforce.”
To help solve this issue Commissioner Collins believes he should be given an operational budget to manage which he would have to account for.