Geisha Kow­lessar

A bit­ter row has erupt­ed be­tween pres­i­dent of the Pris­ons Of­fi­cers' As­so­ci­a­tion Ra­jku­mar Ram­roop and the as­so­ci­a­tion's gen­er­al sec­re­tary Bur­ton Hill which has led to Hill's sus­pen­sion on Wednes­day. And ac­cord­ing to Hill, the in­ci­dent mir­rored that of the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion's where dis­si­dent PSA mem­bers tried to oust pres­i­dent Wat­son Duke. Sev­er­al times last year, heav­i­ly-armed po­lice of­fi­cers were forced to storm the PSA's head­quar­ters at Aber­crom­by Street, Port-of-Spain, af­ter vi­o­lent fights erupt­ed. In con­firm­ing Hill's sus­pen­sion, Ram­roop said yes­ter­day that the de­ci­sion to sus­pend Hill was tak­en at an ex­ec­u­tive meet­ing which was sup­port­ed by fel­low of­fi­cers. "We had a meet­ing at the ex­ec­u­tive lev­el, fol­low­ing which the de­ci­sion to sus­pend was tak­en and it was well sup­port­ed," Ram­roop said.

He al­so ac­cused Hill of "col­lud­ing with the en­e­my" and con­duct­ing il­le­gal af­fairs which he claimed was to the detri­ment of the as­so­ci­a­tion. The rift came on the heels of height­ened protest ac­tion by a hand­ful of pris­ons of­fi­cers who gath­ered out­side the build­ing of the Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion on Cipri­ani Boule­vard, Port-of-Spain, de­mand­ing the re­moval of chair­man Christo­pher Thomas and Di­rec­tor of Per­son­nel Ad­min­is­tra­tion (DPA) Glo­ria Ed­wards-Joseph. For two weeks, some dis­grun­tled pris­ons of­fi­cers have been ac­cus­ing the com­mis­sion of fail­ing to fill va­can­cies, which have ex­ist­ed since 2009, with­in the Pris­ons Ser­vice. At yes­ter­day's protest, Ram­roop cit­ed that in 2009, 65 Pris­ons Of­fi­cers I, who were suc­cess­ful in pro­mo­tion ex­am­i­na­tions in 2003, were pro­mot­ed, and 40 of the ex­ist­ing 80 va­can­cies in Cab­i­net Minute Num­ber 1758 were filled.

How­ev­er, there re­mained an ad­di­tion­al 40 va­cant po­si­tions of Pris­ons Of­fi­cer II from the Cab­i­net Minute. Ram­roop said he had gath­ered some 500 sig­na­tures from pris­ons of­fi­cers work­ing at the var­i­ous fa­cil­i­ties which de­mand­ed an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the run­nings of the com­mis­sion and the op­er­a­tions of the DPA. Copies of the pe­ti­tions are ex­pect­ed to be pre­sent­ed to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar next Fri­day. A let­ter out­lin­ing the con­cerns of the pris­ons of­fi­cers was al­so ex­pect­ed to be de­liv­ered to the Prime Min­is­ter to­day. Ram­roop said the com­mis­sion was es­tab­lished with the aim of be­ing fair to all pub­lic of­fi­cers, yet that was not the case with pris­ons of­fi­cers. "The Pris­ons Of­fi­cers As­so­ci­a­tion wish­es to make it in­deli­bly clear it does not sup­port the point-based sys­tem prof­fered by the Di­rec­tor of Per­son­nel Ad­min­is­tra­tion for pro­mo­tion in the Sec­ond Di­vi­sion of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Pris­ons Ser­vice," he said. In re­sponse to his dis­missal yes­ter­day, Hill ac­cused Ra­jku­mar of car­ry­ing out an "il­le­gal sus­pen­sion," say­ing he in­tend­ed to pur­sue all his op­tions.

"I am not afraid to demit of­fice, but we have a pres­i­dent who is act­ing with­out any au­thor­i­ty, with­out any sup­port from the gen­er­al mem­ber­ship and my sus­pen­sion is to­tal­ly il­le­gal," Hill said. He said the rea­son he was sus­pend­ed was be­cause he was "mere­ly in­form­ing of­fi­cers of their rights." "I have done ab­solute­ly noth­ing wrong," he said. "All I did was dis­trib­ute in­for­ma­tion to the mem­bers and in­form them of their rights and cer­tain things, of which they must be made aware. "It would now be up to them what course of ac­tion they would want to take and what they want to do af­ter they have been prop­er­ly in­formed," Hill said. In­sist­ing that he was an elect­ed of­fi­cer, Hill al­so ac­cused Ra­jku­mar of "be­ing the sole judge and ju­ry," and of "us­ing the com­mis­sion for his own ben­e­fit."

He said: Mr Ra­jku­mar is act­ing in a very high-hand­ed man­ner and this sit­u­a­tion is just like that of the PSA be­cause the pres­i­dent is act­ing with­out any au­thor­i­ty and con­trary to the con­sti­tu­tion. "The hand­ful of of­fi­cers who are protest­ing are be­ing mis­led and they are not aware of in­for­ma­tion which is not be­ing dis­trib­uted," Hill charged. He al­so ac­cused Ra­jku­mar of fail­ing to call meet­ings as was man­dat­ed by the con­sti­tu­tion. The as­so­ci­a­tion's elec­tions are ex­pect­ed to take place in March. To prove his in­no­cence, Hill said he in­tend­ed to cite the as­so­ci­a­tion's con­sti­tu­tion and the Pris­ons Ser­vice Act and al­so in­tend­ed to take the mat­ter to the Reg­is­trar Gen­er­al. Wage ne­go­ti­a­tions for pris­ons of­fi­cers were in the third year and Hill said there was no word on how the mat­ter was pro­gress­ing as no meet­ings were be­ing called.