A bill to plug the loophole which won axed Assistant Police Commissioner Wayne Perinchief a massive cash pay-off has been drawn up.

Government wants to take responsibility for staffing levels of 15 Government departments -- including the Police Service -- out of the hands of politicians and give it to Governor Thorold Masefield instead.

But the move is set to run into resistance from the Opposition when it is debated in the next session of Parliament.

Mr. Perinchief lost his job in January, 1996, after then-Police Commissioner Colin Coxall streamlined the force's rank structure.

But Government did not pass the legislation to legally alter the size of the force and Puisne Judge Norma Wade ruled that the top cop had been wrongfully dismissed.

And an eleventh-hour settlement before Goverment appealed the verdict saw Mr.

Perinchief walk away with an undisclosed sum -- but thought to be well into six figures.

But now the Civil Establishment Act 1998 aims to end problems with the abolition or creation of posts in Government.

The Governor already holds the same powers in relation to 45 Government departments -- but the bill wants to transfer powers from Parliament to the Governor, who can abolish or create public offices under the Constitution.

Finance Minister Grant Gibbons -- who tabled the bill in the House of Assembly on Friday -- insisted the proposed law was not entirely prompted by the Perinchief row.

But he admitted the Perinchief case "would probably not have occurred'' if the new bill had been in force at the time.

But he added: "It's not just a question of posts which are abolished. It's probably more important in terms of validation -- posts which have been established which may not have been expressly validated will be provided for.'' And he said: "In the Perinchief case, it was the abolition of a post, but we may have hired a person where the post had not been established with express authorisation.

He added: "It's important now that, in order to to able to make changes in established posts, that this thing is settled.

"There are posts which probably need to be created in a number of these departments which have been pending for some time.'' And he said: "The operative words here are `authorisation which has not been expressly obtained'.

"It was assumed for some time that putting the manpower statistics and numbers in the Budget was sufficient for 15 departments....others have separate authorisation.

Loophole "But we have had legal opinions more recently which said that was not sufficient.

"Forty-five departments are under the authority of the Governor -- 15 were not. Including them in the Budget was not, by a strict interpretation, considered sufficient in legal terms.

"And until the court cases were sorted out, we were not able to bring this piece of legislation forward.'' And he stressed the Governor acted on advice from Cabinet in connection with the departments already covered -- and said that would be unlikely to change.

But Shadow Finance Minister Eugene Cox said: "I will have to look at this in detail -- but I don't think it's something we would readily subscribe to.

"Parliament is supreme and I don't think we should be doing this kind of thing....I think it would be a step backwards.

"The principle of transferring certain powers from the legislature to the Governor is indefensible -- that would be my first reaction.

"For that reason alone, we would certainly be opposed to it. If they made a mistake, they should certainly admit it, but we certainly shouldn't be going back to make legislation to amend a mistake.''