It's the first time in history that a board will take over what had been the sole authority and discretion of the commissioner of police.
Commissioner Chester Williams was almost detached when we spoke to him about it today though. He said that there will always be cracks in the system, but he has no qualms with the persons who were chosen.
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"I don't see an issue with any of them, it's a matter for the Minister to appoint. Yes as the Commissioner, I have a nominee on the board and I had nominated Mr Cacho to be my nominee and I think the Magistrate is Mr Dennison, I'm not sure, the other person, honestly I don't even know the composition of the board but I think the CEO is the other person, I would want to think. So the three persons have been nominated, they have a task ahead of them to do which is to ensure that they look at the whole issue of gun license, approve and deny gun license and I'm sure that they are going to do the best that they can where that is concerned."
Reporter:
"I know you said in the past that other countries when they implement boards like Jamaica, it may lead to some more issues, or some more porousness when it comes to persons getting gun license, is that still your stance?"
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"Well every… it doesn't matter how tight you have something, people are always going to find a way to infiltrate it and so we're dealing with a human element here, the board is going to be guided by vetting. The vetting is done by special branch, special branch are humans, there may be a person who might get a good vetting and the persons may not be as good as the vetting speaks of him or her and that is just human nature and if it is that the board were to issue a license to a person whose vetting is impeccable and it turns out that that person is not impeccable as the vetting states then you can'f fault the board for that and neither can you fault the vetting officers because the vetting officers will have to work with the information they are getting from persons that they are interviewing during the course of the vetting so there is always going tone that margin of error where there will be persons who are going to get who don't deserve."
On Monday morning tune in to the Beef on Sunup to find out what Jules Vasquez thinks of the composition of the new board.
