CHIEF of Police Albert Dann is to leave office “by mutual agreement” as Falkland Islands Government (FIG) are refusing to comment further.
In a three line press statement on September 5 FIG thanked Superintendent Dann for his service and stated that recruitment for his replacement would begin in the “next few weeks.”
They concluded by stating “we are not able to comment further on this matter.”
Penguin News (PN) asked FIG why the Chief of Police was off work for an extended period of time, why there have been no updates over the past six months, how mutual agreement was reached, and why they are not commenting further.
The response received was “as the statement released on Friday says, FIG will not be providing any further comment on the matter.”
PN again asked for an explanation why they weren’t commenting to which FIG said, “there won’t be any further comment from FIG on the matter.”
Deputy Portfolio Holder for the Royal Falkland Islands Police MLA Roger Spink, when asked why there was no further information now this is no longer an individual staffing matter, said, “the outcome is that by mutual agreement the person has left the Islands.”
PN asked MLA Spink about the lack of transparency and where the accountability is, to which he responded, “if you look at our history with Chief of Polices it hasn’t been particularly good, this isn’t one individual, this is several over many years and I think there needs to be some changes to the selection process… we need to look at future. I think everybody learns from every instance in life and I think we need to take a long hard look at ourselves and see what we can do better in the future.”
When asked what some of these issues were MLA Spink said, “we’re not involved in the day to day… so I think you’re asking the wrong person… the Governor has a responsibility for the police and it isn’t for the politicians to get involved in internal workings of the police force.”
He did continue that a group with Portfolio Holder MLA Ford, the Chief Executive and the Governor would convene to discuss changes that could be made for future recruitments.