Camille Clarke

Var­i­ous arms of the pro­tec­tive ser­vices have strong­ly crit­i­cised the 2010/2011 bud­get that was pre­sent­ed in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day by Fi­nance Min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an. Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion, Fire Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tion and the Pris­ons As­so­ci­a­tion ex­pressed dis­ap­point­ment that not enough in­cen­tives were of­fered. Gen­er­al sec­re­tary of the po­lice as­so­ci­a­tion, Michael Seales, said while some of the ini­tia­tives were wel­comed, much more should have been of­fered. He said: "We wel­come the $1,000 tax-free month­ly spe­cial du­ty al­lowance but that is sep­a­rate from ne­go­ti­a­tions.

"It must be ben­e­fi­cial, both for the long and short-term, but it has to be in con­nec­tion with our mem­ber­ship views." He said the in­tro­duc­tion of bi­cy­cle pa­trols was not wel­comed. "The bi­cy­cles pa­trols were shot down by our mem­bers a while ago," Seales added. Re­fur­bish­ment and up­grade of sev­er­al po­lice sta­tions, how­ev­er, were ur­gent, Seales said. Ne­go­ti­a­tions for po­lice of­fi­cers, Seales said, still re­mained an is­sue. He ex­plained: "The Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer was wait­ing for the sig­nal on how to pro­ceed with the bud­get al­lo­ca­tion. It was based on how much the tar­get­ed fig­ure is."

He said there were out­stand­ing over­time pay­ments and the non-use of pay slips that need­ed to be ur­gent­ly ad­dressed. Pres­i­dent of the Fire Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tion, Charles Ram­sa­roop, said his mem­bers, who per­formed yeo­man ser­vice, were not recog­nised for their ef­forts. He added: "My of­fi­cers face sim­i­lar threats as po­lice­men when they go to out fires. "Is there on­ly one func­tion­ing unit un­der Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty?" Ram­sa­roop ques­tioned. "Are fire of­fi­cers re­gard­ed as sec­ond class in na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty?"

He added: "We make less than po­lice of­fi­cers. Are they say­ing it is on­ly po­lice of­fi­cers who moon­light? We al­so have to make ends meet. What is good for one is good for all. How come on­ly they are ap­pre­ci­at­ed?" Ram­sa­roop asked. Pres­i­dent of the Pris­ons Of­fi­cers As­so­ci­a­tion Ra­jku­mar Ram­roop, how­ev­er, hailed some of the ini­tia­tives pre­sent­ed in the bud­get, name­ly the youth pro­gramme and pro­pos­als for re-in­te­gra­tion of for­mer pris­on­ers. He said: "We wel­come this ini­tia­tive if there is gen­uine re­form and well-struc­tured pro­grammes be­fore there is rein­te­gra­tion of for­mer pris­on­ers."

He al­so wel­comed the rec­om­men­da­tion to men­tor delin­quent youths which "will even­tu­al­ly lead to the cre­ation of a safer so­ci­ety," he said. Ex­press­ing dis­ap­point­ment by what he claimed was the greater recog­ni­tion of po­lice of­fi­cers, Ram­roop said: "They said po­lice of­fi­cers are un­sung he­roes. We are the for­got­ten who need to be recog­nised for our con­tri­bu­tion."