Let me start with something simple. The questions MP Lewis has been talking about in the
press have not actually reached my office yet. They will be answered in full once they come
through the proper channel in Parliament. But because the narrative being advanced in public
right now is wrong, a few things need to be said straight away.
For the sake of clarity, one important point should be corrected at the outset. The Chief of Police
has not been “appointed” to a separate post of Secretary-General. What is at issue is a
temporary stand-in arrangement to ensure continuity of the Ministry when the Secretary-General
is absent or unavailable. Such arrangements are governed by Article 25 of the Civil Servants
Ordinance and exist precisely to prevent administrative stagnation. “Acting Secretary-General”
is not a job. It is not a position that gets posted, advertised, or filled through a recruitment
process. It is simply the rule for who steps in on days when the Secretary-General is away, sick,
travelling for work, or otherwise unavailable. Every ministry needs someone who can sign
papers and keep the work of government moving. That is all this is.
Now to the heart of the “conflict of interest” claim, because it rests on a basic misunderstanding
of how the justice chain actually works.
A conflict of interest arises when someone ends up in a position to supervise themselves, or to
check their own work, or to make decisions about their own pay, promotion, or discipline. That is
not the situation here, and it never has been. The Chief of Police does not report to the
Secretary-General. He never has. Under the law, the Chief of Police answers to the Minister for
operational policing matters, and the Secretary-General runs the civil service side of the
ministry. They are two separate tracks that both lead to the Minister, not one track where one
person sits above the other. And on both of those tracks, the Minister holds political
responsibility and the final decision. A stand-in does not set policy. A stand-in does not take
decisions that are reserved to the Minister by law. Nothing of substance moves in this ministry
without my knowledge and my authorization. That is how the system is designed, and that is
how it is being run.
As a lawyer, and as the sitting Minister of Justice, I take that responsibility seriously. The
decision to designate the Chief of Police as stand-in was mine, made with full awareness of the
applicable legal framework. Mr. John has my confidence. He has served as Chief of Police
since 2015, has performed well in that role, and has played a constructive part in bringing
cohesion to the Ministry.
And this is where the concern deepens, not about the arrangement, but about the person raising
the alarm. MP Lewis is a former Minister of Justice and a former police officer. The Kingdom Act
on the Police, and the broader framework that governs how the Chief of Police, the Minister,
and the civil apparatus of the ministry relate to each other, is not unfamiliar territory for him. It is
territory he has worked in for years, from both sides. A misunderstanding of this basic structure,
from someone with his background, is difficult to explain as an honest mistake. The public is
entitled to ask whether the confusion is real, or whether the framework is being misrepresented
on purpose to manufacture a controversy. Neither possibility reflects well on the seriousness of
the concerns he claims to be raising.
That brings us to the history, and this is where the facts matter most.
This arrangement is not new, and it is not unusual. For years, under several different
governments, the role of acting Secretary-General has been filled by whichever service head
within the ministry made sense at the time. Under Minister Kirindongo, the Chief of Police filled
it. Under Minister Anna Richardson, the role rotated among multiple service heads over the
course of her tenure. For a long stretch spanning multiple administrations, including during MP
Lewis’s own tenure as Minister of Justice, the Head of the Financial Intelligence Unit filled it.
None of this was treated as a conflict of interest at the time. No fifty-question letters were sent to
Parliament. No press releases were written about good governance and institutional integrity.
The work of the ministry simply continued, because that is what the stand-in arrangement exists
to make possible.
So the question answers itself. If the same arrangement was acceptable under Minister
Kirindongo, across Minister Richardson’s full tenure, and during MP Lewis’s own time as
Minister of Justice, it cannot suddenly become a scandal now. The arrangement has not
changed. The person writing the press release has.
I welcome scrutiny. Every minister should. But scrutiny only means something when the same
rules are applied to everyone. Raising an alarm about something that was perfectly fine when
you were the one doing it is not scrutiny. It is politics.
Public debate is important, but it should remain grounded in the applicable legal framework and
in the facts.
The people working in our justice sector deserve better than that, and so does the public. When
MP Lewis’s questions reach my desk through Parliament, they will be answered, fully and on
the record.