Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

For­mer Im­mi­gra­tion De­ten­tion Cen­tre (IDC) of­fi­cers are now ap­peal­ing to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to ur­gent­ly in­ter­vene af­ter their pre­vi­ous ap­peals to re­ceive un­paid ben­e­fits have gone unan­swered.

John­son Gue­vara, who is among 39 of­fi­cers still await­ing their ben­e­fits, said they were sent home on Jan­u­ary 31, 2024, with­out gra­tu­ity, meal al­lowances and CO­LA.

De­spite cor­re­spon­dence to the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer, the Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter and the Chief Im­mi­gra­tion Of­fi­cer, he said the mat­ter re­mains un­re­solved.

John­son said they al­so wrote to the Om­buds­man, where he got some trac­tion, but “things re­main dor­mant.”

Gue­vara said on March 31 he had hand-de­liv­ered a let­ter to the Prime Min­is­ter re­quest­ing her as­sis­tance.

He com­mend­ed Per­sad-Bisses­sar for seek­ing Ca­roni work­ers’ in­ter­est, but asked her, as the head of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, to in­ter­vene in their mat­ter.

“And just as how we have vowed to ad­dress the cane farm­ers, we are call­ing on you to ad­dress the 39 of­fi­cers, in­clud­ing my­self, what we are en­ti­tled for. That is CO­LA, meal al­lowance and our gra­tu­ity.”

John­son said some mon­ey was paid to of­fi­cers who are still work­ing at the IDC, but there has been no word on whether the for­mer of­fi­cers will al­so be paid.

Not­ing that they were not in a fi­nan­cial po­si­tion to seek le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tion, he plead­ed, “Madam Prime Min­is­ter, we are call­ing on you to ad­dress this mat­ter as ur­gent be­cause you say when ‘UNC win, every­body win.’ You al­so say that no one should be left be­hind. I don’t want to say that you’re leav­ing us be­hind be­cause I know that you are a car­ing per­son and you are a woman to your word. So, we are look­ing for­ward for you to main­tain such,” he said.

Ear­li­er this year, Min­is­ter Alexan­der in­di­cat­ed that he would speak with the Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary in the Min­istry re­gard­ing the mat­ter, but he did not re­spond to a re­quest from Guardian Me­dia for an up­date.