And with all the changes taking place at the department, the question remains: what will happen to current Deputy Transport Officer Peter Williams? Reports say he is being sidelined-and that the CEO plans to bring in a second Deputy.
Well, Williams dismisses those claims, arguing that the double deputy roles are designed to strengthen the department:
Chester Williams, CEO - Ministry of Transport
"That is not true. Again, it's sad to see that when we're trying to improve the Department of Transport, not for ourselves, but for the public, we perform a public function, and I believe that when we are tasked with providing a public function, we are to ensure that we do our best. We cannot have a situation where we have mediocrity, and we're striving for that. Peter Williams is very essential to the Department. He has been there before, Mr. Gentle. He has a wealth of knowledge, a wealth of experience. I don't understand what would even cause someone to think that Mr. Williams is being tossed aside. How can we? We simply want to ensure that we do things that are going to enhance. He cannot be everywhere at the same time. He cannot be looking after administrative issues and enforcement issues, and that's the reason why the role of the deputy has been split, to ensure we have two deputies who can perform in the two different areas, and they work together for the greater good of the Department. Now, we have not yet advertised the post for deputy, but hopefully soon we will advertise that post, and we'll invite applicants. We want to ensure that whenever we select a deputy, it's going to be someone who is going to complement the Department, who is going to bring value to the Department, and I can say to you, there are many police officers who have been asking for transfer over to transport, many. If we entertain all of them, the police is going to be left with nobody, right? That's the truth, but what we want, again, is people who can bring value. Police officers are already trained in traffic laws extensively, so it is easy for us to look at somebody from the Police Department, to fill that vacancy. I'm not going to say that is the case, because then we're going to open the application to everyone in the public out there, but again, experience is going to have a great weight on determining who fills that vacancy for deputy chief, deputy, the second deputy."
