The individuals who will sit at the helm of the Royal Police Force of Antigua and Barbuda could be announced in a matter of weeks.

This according to Minister of National Security Dr. Errol Cort.

The minister said as of Tuesday, all of the key players would have met and received a comprehensive briefing in respect of the performances of the candidates.

“It's is now to look at the results and then ultimately make a determination to where we go from here. Hopefully by next week, I would be able to say where we intend to go.”

He said part of the role of the Canadian leaders who are currently heading the force was to look at the whole succession plan, in terms of the hierarchy, to examine the competence of the persons within the force and their ability to take over and effectively run the police force.

“We had numerous training programmes at all levels over the past year or so in an effort to bring persons up to a level and then do an assessment of the competence of certain individuals to take over the leadership of the force.”

The last training programme took place in October at the Jolly Beach Resort where people were brought in from the United Kingdom  to conduct exercises with all police officers along with officers from other regional countries.

“The idea was for the Canadians to then begin the assessment of our local individuals in terms of their ability to take over the management, while the assessment took place in December.”

Following the last training, nine of the individuals including an Antiguan who forms part the police force in the British Virgin Islands were interviewed on how they would handle certain situations as a top cop and other technical matters that would determine their competence.

“These interviews were recorded so that we could go back and see how this particular person did coming out of the interview, the panel that conducted it there was a ranking system and a scoring system and folks were graded in terms of their performance. Then ultimately a report was written in respect of every interviewee and their performances.”

The two-year contracts of the four Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) officers who currently head Antigua’s police force end on February 28.

The minister also sought to clear the air on reports that he had promised the position of commissioner to Inspector Vere Brown of the British Virgin Island Police Force.

Cort said he could do no such thing as there is a process which must be followed.

“Mr Brown came, did his interview in January. I met with him after his interview, we had some discussions but no offer was made and none could be made because he would have to be properly assessed by the assessment team in terms of how he performed.”