Unions says Chief of Police should take responsibility for signing advice he did not write.
PHILIPSBURG:--- Two of the three police unions have dispatched a letter to the Prosecutor's Office notifying them of what they considered criminal actions by a civil servant in the department of Human Resources of the KPSM. According to information provided to SMN News, a civil servant in the department wrote an advice for herself, leaving out her other colleagues that are working in the department when she prepared the advice for Chief Commissioner of Police Peter de Witte to sign.
In the advice that was allegedly sent through the back door to the acting Secretary General of Justice Udo Aron to be processed, the civil servant identified as Synthia Hok A Hin of Surinamese descent advised that she is placed in the permanent service at KPSM she also stated in the advice that she should be placed in that position retroactive to January 2014 while her contract with KPSM was valid until July 2014.
The unions said the civil servant even proposed that she get a highest scale which is scale 12, one that does not exists. "Scale 12 is a scale for police officers and not civil servants. The disgruntled workers and union representatives said that to date they cannot tell if Hok a Hin is fully qualified for the position she holds, because to date they have not seen her qualifications, secondly they said they don't even know what salary the foreign worker who came here on a three year contract is making. Is she making more monies than the civil servants that are working at KPSM for more than 25 years?
The advice that was prepared by Hok A Hin was signed off by Chief Commissioner of Police Peter de Witte who admitted that he signed the advice without reading through the contents thoroughly. "I accept full responsibility for signing an advice without reading it properly, secondly I went to each of the unions and to the Minister of Justice and I took full responsibility for my mistake. The advice for Hok A Hin did not go through the back door as alleged by the unions and the workers, it went to the acting secretary general who had to take it to the controller and the human resource personnel at the Ministry that has to review the advice. There are several cases where mistakes are being made or the advices were not made properly and it is sent back to me as Chief of Police with the comments from the Minister. But in this case, the information went viral (public) before the Minister even saw the advice. This is something I cannot understand." Minister of Justice Dennis Richardson also shared the same sentiments. Minister Richardson said that there were some strong comments made on the advice that had numerous mistakes and it was sent back to the management of KPSM for rectifications.
The workers and union representatives said that the civil servant is extremely close with members of the management team, they alleged that she writes for them, which has been proven in her own case. "The Chief Commissioner of Police Peter de Witte is the one that is authorized to write advices for the Minister not people that he likes or favors in KPSM. In this case he told Hok A Hin to write her advice and he will sign it off, which he did without even reading it. We need to know if De Witte lost interest in his job since he knows he is soon leaving his post as Chief Commissioner of Police." In response to that De Witte said advices have to be written by the department of Human Resources, he said that Hok A Hin wrote most of the advice but her other colleagues were also involved. When asked if he realized that someone writing an advice for themselves is a conflict of interest and the person "even if working in the department of Human Resources" will lose their objectivity knowing that the advice will benefit them personally? De Witte said that is indeed the case and he should have taken all of that into consideration. He said he does not know how many times he has to go around telling people that he was sorry for signing an advice prior to reading it properly and most importantly for not noticing the mistakes in the advice. "I am not too big to say I am sorry and that I made a mistake, I did this over and over and yet two weeks after the story is still circulating. What is questionable is that this information was leaked to politicians and the media even before the Minister of Justice saw the advice. I understand that there are officers who believe that this advice was given priority because they are waiting over a year for their promotions but that was not the case. The advice for Hok A Hin was by the Acting Secretary General whose responsibility was to process it according to the procedures."
President of the NAPB; E.S. Josepha told SMN News that he was off island when this issue broke, he said he did not know what was taking place behind his back but when he returned to the island and was fully updated he laid the blame fully with the Chief of Police whom he said has to take the responsibility for first allowing Hok a A Hin to write her own advice. Josepha said he is not blaming the civil servant in question but the Chief Commissioner of Police and the Acting Chief of Police have to take responsibility for not following the proper procedures. Josepha said he held meetings with both the Minister of Justice Dennis Richardson and the Chief of Police and made his position very clear to both of them. "People need to act without emotions, the people that is fully responsible is the Chief of Police Peter de Witte who already took his responsibility for signing a document he did not read or write himself and secondly, one must understand that De Witte has full power to write advices and in this case it's an advice that was presented to the acting Secretary General Udo Aron. I want the staff and police officers to know that the Minister of Justice ordered De Witte and the Secretary General to re-write the advice. Secondly, people have to act responsibly, instead of doing things right they leaked the information prior to the Minister seeing the advice that was sent to the Acting Secretary General I want to make abundantly clear that I am not in cahoots with the other two unions namely the ABVO and the WICSU who are going after the civil servant and not holding the police management responsible for their actions. Right now the Chief of Police and the acting SG got orders from the Minister to re-write the advice prior to bringing it to his desk."
The workers said that Hok A Hin's contract is currently up and she should not be working period unless her contract is renewed. They said that management of KPSM does things for people they like while workers of KPSM that worked for years is waiting for their files to be handled, but in the case of Hok A Hin the management team of KPSM were doing everything possible for her LB to be signed off before the current Minister of Justice leaves office.
It should be noted that the Minister of Justice Dennis Richardson held a meeting two weeks ago with two of the unions and with Chief Commissioner of Police Peter de Witte who admitted that he made a mistake and is willing to correct those mistakes based on the orders of the Minister of Justice.
