Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

The $1,000 spe­cial al­lowance grant­ed to the pro­tec­tive ser­vices in the 2011-2012 bud­get will do noth­ing to bol­ster the morale of de­mo­ti­vat­ed of­fi­cers, says pres­i­dent gen­er­al of the Oil­fields Work­ers' Trade Union (OW­TU) An­cel Ro­get.Speak­ing at a post-bud­get fo­rum at the union's Para­mount head­quar­ters in San Fer­nan­do yes­ter­day, Ro­get ex­pressed dis­ap­point­ment that "Gov­ern­ment had done noth­ing to ap­pease the volatile in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions cli­mate."It is clear to say that the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance pred­i­cat­ed this bud­get on a num­ber of as­sump­tions such as in­creased pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, eco­nom­ic trans­for­ma­tion, broad na­tion­al sup­port and in­creased for­eign di­rect in­vest­ment," he said.

"But noth­ing was said about the cur­rent in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions cri­sis in the coun­try."The Fi­nance Min­is­ter went on the as­sume that by giv­ing a big chunk of the bud­get to the pro­tec­tive ser­vices and giv­ing the rest of the pro­tec­tive ser­vices the $1,000 al­lowance which they should have done in the first place, that their crime-fight­ing ini­tia­tives will be bol­stered."Ex­press­ing doubt that the "al­lowance will im­me­di­ate­ly trans­form the minds and the morale of those in the pro­tec­tive ser­vices," Ro­get said the Gov­ern­ment's $4 bil­lion crime-fight­ing plan couldn't work un­less salary ne­go­ti­a­tions were ad­dressed.

"Noth­ing was said in the bud­get about the de­mor­alised and de­mo­ti­vat­ed po­lice force, whose re­spon­si­bil­i­ty in a state of emer­gency is to main­tain law and or­der," he said."Noth­ing was said about the po­lice out­stand­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions."Ro­get al­so said he did not be­lieve the pro­ject­ed growth rate pre­dict­ed by Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Win­ston Dook­er­an."Last year, Mr Dook­er­an promised to grow the econ­o­my by 1.7 to two per cent...The re­al­i­ty is we had a de­cline of 1.4 per cent," he said."This year again he is promis­ing a 1.7 growth in the GDP but we are not cer­tain that in the next 12 months we will record any type of growth in the econ­o­my."

Ro­get added that out of $47.7 bil­lion in rev­enue Dook­er­an ex­pects to col­lect, some $18.1 bil­lion comes from the en­er­gy sec­tor."Yet noth­ing was said about in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions cri­sis in that sec­tor," he said."There­fore, a big chunk of his rev­enue is com­ing from a sec­tor that is in tur­moil and cri­sis with all out­stand­ing wage ne­go­ti­a­tions."If we strip off the good­ies and look square­ly in the face of re­al­i­ty, we will see that this is an­oth­er de­cep­tive move."He added that in­vestor con­fi­dence, in­creased pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and for­eign in­vest­ment can­not be at­tained if the in­dus­tri­al cli­mate is volatile.