By EARYEL BOWLEG 

Tribune Staff Reporter 

ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

NATIONAL Security Minister Wayne Munroe says the Royal Bahamas Police Force needs 2,000 more officers due to hundreds of inactive officers on indefinite sick leave, limited training capacity, and too few qualified applicants.

He said staffing a police station requires at least six officers on duty around the clock, meaning a minimum of 18 officers per station to cover three shifts, not including response teams.

Larger stations require even more.

“You have drug enforcement, you have anti-gang, you have the special operations units on the road. They require manpower 24 hours a day, because the police force is a 24 hour proposition,” he said, justifying Commissioner Shanta Knowles’ recent revelation that the police force needs 2,000 more officers.

Mr Munroe said the Police Commissioner told him 200 to 300 officers are still officially counted in the force’s numbers, despite being on extended sick leave. He said officials estimate ten to 15 percent of the RBPF and Royal Bahamas Defence Force are on sick leave with no expectation of returning.

Commissioner Knowles previously said the RBPF began the year with around 2,656 officers. She said that number has since declined because of retirements and resignations.

Mr Munroe said recruitment is ongoing but hindered by limited space at the police college. Proper training, he noted, requires an adequate ratio of instructors to recruits.

He also pointed to the financial challenge of scaling up recruitment.

“I think when we recruit like a desired 100, 102 people, we need a million dollars or so budgeted for it because you got to pay them while they’re in training,” he said.

He said applicants must pass rigorous screening, including background checks, drug and medical tests, physical fitness standards, and a written exam.

When the Davis administration came to power in 2021, Mr Munroe said the force faced a shortfall of about 900 officers. He blamed recruitment failures under the previous government and suggested his administration was solving the problem. Now, the commissioner appointed by his administration says the actual need is more than double 900.

Pressed about this, Mr Munroe said that earlier estimates may have been based on conditions at the time, but demands have grown. He pointed to development on islands like Eleuthera, where local representatives and residents are now calling for more police.

“If the person doing that assessment was only basing it on there being five policemen on Eleuthera, but since then we’ve had development, everyone has been crying out for more officers,” he said. “As the country develops in terms of actual growth and as it develops other processes, circumstances that might need policing, that might push the position on the necessary policeman.”

A 2021 manpower audit by the Ministry of National Security’s Research and Development Section found that the RBPF was short hundreds of constables and top-heavy with senior officers. The report highlighted a lack of effective knowledge transfer at higher ranks and called for rebalancing the force’s structure.