Was Chester Williams Pushed out of the Police Department?

Chester Williams, Belize’s longest-serving Commissioner of Police, is gearing up to become the C.E.O. of the Ministry of Transport. While Williams is excited about this new chapter in his career, a recent letter from Sharole Saldivar, the C.E.O. of Home Affairs, hints at some underlying tension. In the letter, Saldivar told Williams to stop acting as commissioner and only serve as a caretaker during his transition. This means he can’t make any major policy decisions or structural changes in the department. We asked Williams and Minister of Home Affairs Kareem Musa if this suggests he was being pushed out. Here’s what they had to say.

 

Kareem Musa, Minister of Home Affairs

“His record  speaks for itself. I think you can look at his entire tenure in office. It has been an accomplished record. He has done so much, not just in terms of reducing crime, but for the welfare of the police officers in our department. And so it’s a difficult thing because. I know the commissioner still has a lot of life left in him. He’s only fifty-one years old. But the Prime Minister and myself discussed the future because we certainly would never want to lose our commissioner and his capabilities, his capacity. As last year we had the most traffic fatalities probably in the history of the country. Commissioner can back me up on that. And we can see where even while he was commissioner, sharing with us at the cabinet level, a lot of strategies that can be put in place to make our highways a lot safer. During  this transition period, while it is that we would hope for a seamless, smooth transition, there are certain actions and certain decisions that can be made that can affect the department moving forward. And so it was just a reminder in terms of the transition, It has cost implications for transfers. It has cost implications for promotions. Let us try to make the transition as smooth as possible because not necessarily the new commissioner of police would agree to these transfers, and so we have to make sure that we preserve the status quo as best as possible. And so that’s how I see the letter just saying, let us preserve the status quo as we transition.”

 

Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police

“ I’m not a person that likes adversities like other adversities in terms of executing my duties and getting into conflict with persons who are not complying with the law or even with the media. I could deal with that. But when it comes to having conflict within the workplace I don’t like that at all. As much as I enjoyed and loved being a police officer, and believe you me this has been my career. I worked thirty-three years to be where I am, and I was extremely unpleased with the letter. And like you rightly said, the CEO has no legal authority to have wrote the letter that she did. I had already explained to our minister Kareem what I intend to do before leaving. We discussed and we agreed on certain things. And so I was surprised by the letter nonetheless to be able to avoid any. Fighting in-house fighting I decided that you know what, it’s best I pack up and leave and move over to my new era of responsibility.”