Lead Stories

Arthur Hall, Senior Staff Reporter

ALMOST 40 employees of the Police Public Com-plaints Authority (PPCA) now face an uncertain future .

The Independent Commission of Investigations Act repealed the Police Public Complaints Act, effectively ending the life of the 17-year-old civilian body which was established to probe allegations against members of the Jamaica Constabulary Force.

But it appears that nobody remembered to tell the staff of the PPCA.

Now, the 36 PPCA employees, split over offices in New Kingston and Montego Bay, St James, do not know if they will have a job after the holiday weekend.

"We are in limbo. All the reports we are getting are what is in the media," long-time PPCA employee, George McIntosh, told The Gleaner yesterday.

"We understand that the com-missioner of the new investigative body has been appointed, and we don't know where to go from here," McIntosh added.

"We are totally unsure of the process going forward. We have not been briefed by anyone," said Derrick Dixon, an investigator with the PPCA.

He was also unsure about the cases which were now being probed by PPCA.

"About 250 investigations have been initiated since the start of the year, but I could not tell you how many are completed," said Dixon.

"We are all in limbo because nobody has been saying anything to us and I don't think that is good," said Peta-Gay Boyd, an administrator at the PPCA.

"I don't know if I should come on Tuesday because nobody has said anything to us. Maybe I will come in, and if anything, I will just make my way back to Mandeville," Ventrece Spencer-McDowell said.

"I'm confused. I don't know if we are going to be absorbed into the new agency, I don't know if we have been fired or if we have been made redundant," said Taneish Wisdom-Banton, as she joined her colleagues in expressing concern.

The Gleaner was unsuccessful in its efforts to contact the chairman of the PPCA, former Chief Justice Lensley Wolfe.

However, Terrence Williams, who was sworn in on Thursday to head the new civilian body to probe allegations against members of the security forces, had underscored that under the law, the PPCA would be history once the Independent Com-mission of Investigations was established.

Williams told The Gleaner that he would be holding talks with the Bureau of Special Investigations, which probes fatal shootings by the police, to clarify the relationship going forward, but no such discussion had been planned for the PPCA.