Senior Reporter
annalisa.paul@guardian.co.tt
As several organisations and agencies wait anxiously to hear what goodies will be delivered in the October 2 Budget, both the Estate Police Association (EPA) and the T&T Police Service Social and Welfare Association (TTPSSWA) are hoping it will be favourable to their members.
The two bodies are hoping for improved bulletproof vests, with the police asking for special COVID payments.
Police association head, ASP Gideon Dickson, said yesterday that officers have a wish list they want fulfilled.
Among them are the payments of all outstanding matters, including negotiated salaries for the period 2014-2019; the settlement of all incremental benefits to officers; and ex-gratia payments to all officers who worked during COVID-19. Dickson said it would be “similar to what medical professionals received”.
He again called for the absorption of Special Reserve Police (SRP) officers into the T&T Police Service (TTPS), which he said would “impact positively on our manpower shortage”.
Turning his attention to retired officers, Dickson renewed the call for medical insurance for serving and retired officers; indexing pensionable benefits to modern negotiation; the implementation of a job evaluation exercise to bring officers’ salaries closer to market value; improved working conditions and the provision of auxiliary physical resources such as printers, computers, vehicles, bulletproof vests; and the continued training and recertification of officers at all levels.
Meanwhile, EPA president Derrick Richardson was holding out hope that consideration would be given to security officers in the budget.
Speaking with Guardian Media during a rally at Woodford Square, Port-of-Spain, on Tuesday—where fallen comrades Jeffrey Peters and Jerry Stuart, who were killed on September 19, 2022, during a heist at the Pennywise Plaza, La Romain, were remembered, Richardson and others spoke of the challenges they continued to face on the job daily.
“We have been asking for the past four or five years, for the Government to consider taking off taxes and duties on bullet-proof vests.
“We are hopeful that in this dispensation of the budget, that that comes to life,” he said.
Richardson also said they are hoping for an increase in the minimum wage, which currently stands at $17.50 per hour. That figure was increased from $15 per hour in October 2019.