Gail Alexan­der

Ut­ter ir­re­spon­si­bil­i­ty! Dras­tic and dan­ger­ous.That's how Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar yes­ter­day de­scribed re­cent sick-out ac­tion by what she de­scribed as a "mi­nor­i­ty" of "mis­guid­ed" po­lice of­fi­cers.In a state­ment to the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, Per­sad-Bisses­sar-who met with au­thor­i­ties on the is­sue yes­ter­day-said a pro­gramme of pro­ce­dures and strate­gies will be de­ployed if there is any re­peat of the sit­u­a­tion which arose a few days ago."I've held dis­cus­sions with the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter, the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and Chief of De­fence Staff and plans are in place to deal with the sit­u­a­tion as it aris­es," Per­sad-Bisses­sar added.

The PM said ne­go­ti­a­tions with the Po­lice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion must con­tin­ue in good faith."...And bet­ter sense must pre­vail, but I can as­sure all and sundry, that these talks will not be con­duct­ed in an at­mos­phere such as was ex­pe­ri­enced by the with­draw­al of ser­vices by sec­tions of the po­lice ser­vice," Per­sad-Bisses­sar added.

The Prime Min­is­ter said she was oblig­ed to speak "re­gard­ing the dras­tic and dan­ger­ous ac­tion be­ing tak­en" by some of­fi­cers."At a time when your Gov­ern­ment is work­ing as­sid­u­ous­ly and with some mea­sure of suc­cess in curb­ing the crime sit­u­a­tion, these ir­re­spon­si­ble acts by some mem­bers of the Po­lice Ser­vice place us all in jeop­ardy."She added, "I hold each po­lice of­fi­cer who fails to car­ry out his or her law­ful du­ty to pro­tect and serve cit­i­zens re­spon­si­ble for every crime which could have been pre­vent­ed, but for dere­lic­tion of du­ty."

"Every­one is af­fect­ed by the ir­re­spon­si­ble acts of a small num­ber of po­lice of­fi­cers in­clud­ing the very fam­i­lies and friends of those who aban­don their jobs."Per­sad-Bisses­sar added, "Un­for­tu­nate­ly, the ac­tion tak­en by a mi­nor­i­ty of po­lice of­fi­cers places im­mense pres­sure on their ded­i­cat­ed and loy­al col­leagues who re­main true to their moral and le­gal oblig­a­tions and their oath ."Per­sad-Bisses­sar warned, "As Prime Min­is­ter I can as­sure you this lev­el of ir­re­spon­si­bil­i­ty will not go unchecked."

"Those mem­bers of the Po­lice Ser­vice who may be­lieve that an aban­don­ment of their du­ty to con­duct an es­sen­tial ser­vice such as the pro­tec­tion of our cit­i­zens will find favour ei­ther with the pub­lic or the Gov­ern­ment as a ne­go­ti­a­tion tac­tic. You can ex­pect quite the op­po­site."Per­sad- Bisses­sar said Gov­ern­ment was very mind­ful of of­fi­cers' sit­u­a­tion, but al­so had to act with fis­cal re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and make pru­dent de­ci­sions in the long term na­tion­al in­ter­est "but which in the short term may be un­pop­u­lar in some sec­tors."

She added, "The na­tion can­not be held to ran­som. Pub­lic safe­ty is para­mount and can­not be com­pro­mised or used as a ne­go­ti­a­tion tool. It is the rea­son why cer­tain ser­vices are or­dained by law to be es­sen­tial."Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she un­der­stood of­fi­cers' cir­cum­stances ."I pledge my Gov­ern­ment's sup­port for the ded­i­ca­tion and self­less­ness dis­played. I take this op­por­tu­ni­ty to point out the dif­fi­cult fi­nan­cial con­straints faced by the Gov­ern­ment and our de­sire to turn these cir­cum­stances around so that every­one could ben­e­fit," she said.

Say­ing the sit­u­a­tion had strength­ened her re­solve to cre­ate a Po­lice Ser­vice that "tru­ly un­der­stands its du­ty and ful­fils oblig­a­tion", Per­sad-Bisses­sar added."We must not al­low the ac­tion of a few mis­guid­ed po­lice of­fi­cers to tar­nish the rep­u­ta­tion of the ded­i­cat­ed ma­jor­i­ty. The Po­lice Ser­vice has a long, proud tra­di­tion of ded­i­ca­tion to cit­i­zens and a few ran­dom acts of ut­ter ir­re­spon­si­bil­i­ty can­not erase this his­to­ry."The Prime Min­is­ter as­sured that nec­es­sary pro­vi­sions have been put in place to deal with breach­es of se­cu­ri­ty at every lev­el and that dis­cus­sions have been held and re­sources iden­ti­fied to deal with any sit­u­a­tion.In com­ing weeks, Per­sad-Bisses­sar added, Gov­ern­ment will an­nounce "sev­er­al ma­jor ini­tia­tives that will make pos­i­tive changes" in the lives of cit­i­zens. See Pages A8 and A32