ROSE HALL, St James — Police Commissioner George Quallo says he has signed an order for the withdrawal of all orderly room conduct charges against members of the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) that are older than a year.

Commissioner Quallo, who made the disclosure on Tuesday during the opening ceremony of the Jamaica Police Federation’s 74th Annual Joint Central Conference in St James, said he signed off on it on Monday, and all divisional commanders have been informed.The newly appointed police commissioner pointed out that the issue of orderly room charges is having a negative impact on police officers’ ability to participate in courses.“Minister (Robert Montague), yesterday (Monday) I signed something, because… many times persons are nominated from their division or the formation for courses or to participate in promotional exercises and you will hear, ‘Boss, you have six, seven orderly room charges pending,’” Commissioner Quallo said.The commissioner continued, to a round of applause: “So, yesterday I signed a nice little thing and send it out to all divisional commanders and formations to say, all orderly room matters in excess of a year must be withdrawn.”On Tuesday, he made it clear that the move does not mean that all orderly room charges that go beyond a year will be removed, as this move is a one-off gesture.“We are cleaning the slate and giving people the opportunity to start clean. So, if you have disciplinary charges that are prolonging for over a year, (you) no longer (have them),” Commissioner Quallo stated.“But, hear the catch to it now — because we are running a disciplined organisation — as of now, the charge to every divisional commander is that where an infraction is committed, you have 60 days in which to complete all of those,” the commissioner added.Commissioner Quallo has also called on members of the JCF to refrain from fabricating stories against colleagues as the time for promotions approaches.“Every now and then it comes around to promotion time… and we start to tell lie pon Tom, we start tell lie on Jane,” Quallo said. “We need to stop that. If somebody is doing something that is wrong, then we need to say it. We don’t have to fabricate anything. We don’t need to do that. We need to be honest with each other.”The two-day conference was held at the Iberostar Hotels and Resorts under the theme: ‘Preserving the Institution; Serving the Protectors.’— Anthony Lewis