Act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (CoP) Ju­nior Ben­jamin has de­nied there is a leave re­stric­tion pol­i­cy in place for the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS).

This, fol­low­ing com­plaints from of­fi­cers who re­port­ed be­ing de­nied leave on the ba­sis that it was a “crime-fight­ing mea­sure.”

Dis­grun­tled of­fi­cers claimed they were en­ti­tled to four days off as com­pen­sato­ry time for Car­ni­val 2025, but claimed fol­low­ing the Gen­er­al Elec­tion an­nounce­ment, a memo was is­sued by the act­ing Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, Op­er­a­tions, Curt Si­mon, that leave had once again been re­strict­ed.

Up­set over the fact that the rank and file had not been in­formed of this pri­or to the memo’s re­lease, the of­fi­cers com­plained that they had been work­ing right through Christ­mas, Car­ni­val, the State of Emer­gency, and now for the up­com­ing Gen­er­al Elec­tion, with­out any sub­stan­tial breaks.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, Ben­jamin said, “There is no leave re­stric­tion. We are ask­ing di­vi­sion­al com­man­ders to man­age the leave be­cause we un­der­stand our of­fi­cers are un­der stress and there­fore this means that we will not re­strict leave.”

He added, “We want them to man­age the leave to en­sure that it is on a case-by-case ba­sis.”

Ben­jamin said there seemed to be a lot of con­fu­sion sur­round­ing the man­age­ment di­rec­tive, but this could be eas­i­ly cleared up with an ex­pla­na­tion from the re­spec­tive se­niors.

In a memo dat­ed April 10, the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial & Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion (TTPSS­WA) al­so ad­vised that there was no leave re­stric­tion in place. They ad­vised this fol­low­ing dis­cus­sions with Ben­jamin and oth­er top brass.

The last leave re­stric­tion was lift­ed on Jan­u­ary 2.

—An­na-Lisa Paul