RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

For­mer work­ers of the Im­mi­gra­tion De­ten­tion Cen­tre (IDC), in­clud­ing re­tired po­lice of­fi­cers, have giv­en Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der sev­en work­ing days to ad­dress long-stand­ing com­plaints about un­paid gra­tu­ity and oth­er ben­e­fits.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, for­mer po­lice of­fi­cer John­son Gue­vara, who served for 38 years in the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice, said the group had been wait­ing years for pay­ments owed to them af­ter work­ing at the IDC. At least 38 oth­er re­tired of­fi­cers who worked at the IDC be­tween 2020 and 2023 are owed mil­lions of dol­lars.

A gra­tu­ity work­sheet was pre­pared and au­dit­ed in 2024, but no pay­ment has been made, with of­fi­cers be­ing told that re-au­dit­ing and fund­ing are still pend­ing.

Ac­cord­ing to Gue­vara, the sit­u­a­tion is es­pe­cial­ly trou­bling giv­en that mil­lions of dol­lars were re­port­ed­ly al­lo­cat­ed to the IDC over the years.

He said the work­ers had writ­ten to the min­is­ter as far back as May 9, 2025, but on­ly re­ceived a re­sponse on Jan­u­ary 28, 2026 – nine months lat­er.

Gue­vara said the min­is­ter had al­so in­di­cat­ed that arrange­ments would be made for a meet­ing with the Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary of the Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty, Videsh Maraj, to ad­dress the mat­ter.

How­ev­er, he said a month had passed with­out any up­date.

“We are ask­ing you to do your du­ty, do your job and stop danc­ing around the is­sue. We want our mon­ey. We have al­ready worked for it,” Gue­vara said.

He an­nounced that the for­mer work­ers were giv­ing the min­is­ter sev­en work­ing days from Mon­day, March 9, to pub­licly dis­close the out­come of dis­cus­sions with the min­istry’s Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary.

“If noth­ing hap­pens, we will be meet­ing to de­cide our next course of ac­tion,” he said.

Gue­vara said many of the af­fect­ed work­ers, in­clud­ing those cur­rent­ly em­ployed at the IDC, were still wait­ing for their gra­tu­ity and oth­er en­ti­tle­ments de­spite years of ser­vice.

He added that it was par­tic­u­lar­ly dis­ap­point­ing that Alexan­der, him­self a for­mer po­lice of­fi­cer, had not re­solved the is­sue.

“I served my coun­try, put my life on the line and worked through­out the 80s, 90s and ear­ly 2000s en­sur­ing sta­bil­i­ty in this coun­try. To­day, this is the kind of dis­re­spect we are get­ting,” he said.

An­oth­er for­mer of­fi­cer, Earl Steven­son Grant, said he had worked with Alexan­der dur­ing his time in the po­lice ser­vice and was still await­ing pay­ments af­ter work­ing at the Im­mi­gra­tion De­ten­tion Cen­tre since 2015.

“I haven’t re­ceived any­thing at all,” Grant said. “All we are ask­ing for is the lit­tle mon­ey owed to us so we can clear our debts and move on.”

The men al­so called on Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to in­ter­vene and help re­solve the mat­ter, ar­gu­ing that the is­sue falls un­der na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

Some of the af­fect­ed work­ers said they have been bat­tling for their en­ti­tle­ments for be­tween three and six years.

They warned that if no re­sponse is re­ceived with­in the sev­en-day dead­line, they will con­sid­er fur­ther ac­tion.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance, Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo, and is await­ing a re­sponse.