Tonight we have more from our interview with Commissioner of Police Chester Williams. As we have been reporting, Compol Williams and the President of the Belize Police Association Eldon Arzu are just not seeing eye to eye â€" it’s one issue to the next, from Arzu’s failure to produce an audit, to Arzu’s transfer to a new office, to Arzu allegedly not showing up to work at that new office, to Williams freezing his salary because of that and to the next issue of Williams sending an internal memo to all police formations instructing them not to entertain or tolerate Arzu in any meeting or business dealings. Well yesterday, Williams told us that he sent this memo after Arzu asked for permission to go on a countrywide tour on behalf of the association. Here is how Williams put it.
Chester Williams - Commissioner of Police
"Now he have sent a Memo to me because he constantly want to give me instruction but he don’t want to take instruction from me so sometimes I have to wonder who is the commissioner, is it me or is it him because he don’t want to take instruction from me but he wants to give me instructions and so he sent a letter to me asking for permission to go around the country to speak to officers on the issue of the association accounts. I replied and I said the time will not be given for him to do that and the reason being if it is that he wants to go across the country and meet with the rank and file, I want him to submit the audit of the association accounts and after he submit the audit I am going to give him the go ahead to go across the country and explain to the rank and file, the audit so that they can know exactly what is being done with their money. Accountability and transparency is critical. The police officers work extremely hard for their pay. It is being paid in an association fund and they have a right to know what is being done with their money."
Reporter
"What was his response to your request for the audit?"
Chester Williams
"Well, his response was that he went to consult, or he went to report me to the Caribbean Federation. Instead of wasting time with an issue like this, I really would truly love to be spending my time making the residents of this country safe because we all deserve to be safe crime is a situation and when I have to take out of my time to deal with a police officer who just want to have his own way, it is not a good feeling."
Arzu is at a disadvantage in this dispute - because as a police officer he cannot comment in the press. But the Caribbean Federation of Police Welfare Associations yesterday issued a statement saying, quote, “We consider the actions of the Commissioner of Police to be a personal attack on Corporal Eldon Arzu and we are calling on the Government to respond to this situation which is an abuse of power and an attack on a Police Officer who has committed himself to serve his country.â€
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