Geisha Kow­lessar

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Ed­mund Dil­lon has giv­en the green light for the Po­lice Ser­vice to ab­sorb be­tween 1,500 to 2,000 Spe­cial Re­serve Po­lice of­fi­cers (SRPs).So said pres­i­dent of the Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion Anand Rame­sar in an in­ter­view yes­ter­day.

Rame­sar said the de­ci­sion was tak­en dur­ing Wednes­day's meet­ing with Dil­lon which in­clud­ed the as­so­ci­a­tion and oth­er mem­bers of the pro­tec­tive ser­vices, in­clud­ing the Fire Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion and the Pris­ons As­so­ci­a­tion.But the in­crease, Rame­sar said, would not nec­es­sar­i­ly mean an in­crease in the sanc­tioned strength of the Po­lice Ser­vice which is ap­prox­i­mate­ly 7,500 of­fi­cers.

He said most of the SRPs worked full time and their ab­sorp­tion would fill the va­can­cies left be­hind by those of­fi­cers who had gone on leave.

"The SRPs should have been ab­sorbed quite a while ago be­cause there are per­sons who would have made be­tween five to 20 years and still func­tion­ing as SRPs and to date they have not ex­pe­ri­enced any prop­er terms and con­di­tion of em­ploy­ment," Rame­sar said.

In April last year, a di­rec­tive was giv­en for the re­cruit­ment of SRPs be put on im­me­di­ate hold.Act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Stephen Williams had said that was crit­i­cal be­cause the Po­lice Ser­vice need­ed to in­ten­si­fy back­ground checks of prospec­tive can­di­dates to en­sure un­de­sir­ables did not in­fil­trate the ser­vice.

"I need to en­sure that I am se­lect­ing the right peo­ple for not on­ly en­ter­ing the SRP but al­so the Po­lice Ser­vice.

"I must en­sure the Po­lice Ser­vice has peo­ple of good char­ac­ter and meet all the nec­es­sary re­quire­ments, not just some.

We need peo­ple of in­tegri­ty and these char­ac­ter­is­tics must meet the nec­es­sary en­dorse­ment of the cit­i­zens of this land," Williams had said.His state­ments had come in the wake of sev­er­al SRPs ap­pear­ing be­fore the court to face a num­ber of se­ri­ous crim­i­nal of­fences.

Asked about these con­cerns Rame­sar said a strin­gent cri­te­ria would be im­ple­ment­ed to weed out the good from the bad. "Every or­gan­i­sa­tion has per­sons who have been in­volved in crim­i­nal be­hav­iour and at the Po­lice Ser­vice we are no dif­fer­ent.

"But a se­lec­tion cri­te­ria would def­i­nite­ly not be one that would al­low the in­clu­sion of any­body who has crim­i­nal his­to­ry or ten­den­cies. The cri­te­ria would de­ter­mine the per­sons who should be re­ward­ed the de­ci­sion to be ab­sorbed. It is not just go­ing to be willy-nil­ly," Rame­sar added.He said the as­so­ci­a­tion was ex­pect­ed to hold sev­er­al meet­ings through­out the coun­try with the SRPs as there may be some who would not want to be ab­sorbed.

The first stake­hold­er meet­ing is ex­pect­ed to be held in Toru­ba. At the end of five weeks, Rame­sar said, the meet­ings would be com­plet­ed af­ter which the as­so­ci­a­tion would then meet with Williams.

JUNE DEAD­LINE

On the is­sue of mil­lions of dol­lars in back pay owed to po­lice of­fi­cers, Rame­sar said of­fi­cers who had giv­en Gov­ern­ment un­til the end of this month to pay the mon­ey were now forced to wait un­til June.But he said if noth­ing was paid by June as promised by Dil­lon then of­fi­cers, whose morale was al­ready low, may take cer­tain ac­tion.

"If June comes and there is no back pay as promised by the Gov­ern­ment then the Gov­ern­ment runs the risk of a state of un­health­i­ness in the Po­lice Ser­vice and they would have no­body but them­selves to blame.

"I am clear in my mind they should not have promised June if they can't make June so now they must make June. We trust that the Gov­ern­ment is not mis­lead­ing us," Rame­sar added.

BE­COM­ING A SRP

In or­der to be­come an SRP, one should have at least three 'O' Lev­els, a valid dri­ver's per­mit and be at least 18 years old.An SRP is a part time of­fi­cer who works in four-hour shifts, called tours. An SRP has to ful­fill 40 tours a mon­th­Train­ing lasts for eight weeks, with four weeks fo­cus­ing on the­o­ry and the oth­er four weeks fo­cused on more prac­ti­cal train­ing (at the Po­lice Train­ing Acad­e­my).

Salary be­gins at $4,000.–Source T&T Po­lice Ser­vice web­site