Po­lice of­fi­cers who worked for Car­ni­val Mon­day and Tues­day have been ap­proved four days leave while Spe­cial Re­serve of­fi­cers will be en­ti­tled to four days pay.

This was con­firmed by the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith in a memo dat­ed March 11 to the mem­bers of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS).

Grif­fith in­di­cat­ed that his of­fi­cers dis­played “their com­mit­ment and ded­i­ca­tion” in cre­at­ing an en­vi­ron­ment of safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty for vis­i­tors and cit­i­zens dur­ing the Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions.

He al­so high­ly com­mend­ed them for re­port­ing to work.

“I com­mend the ex­ec­u­tive and all mem­bers of the Po­lice Ser­vice, De­fence Force and oth­er law en­force­ment agen­cies in en­sur­ing that there was a safe and se­cure en­vi­ron­ment for Car­ni­val 2019.”

The leave, how­ev­er, must be utilised by Sep­tem­ber 30.

It was re­vealed that be­tween 95 and 98 per cent of po­lice of­fi­cers re­port­ed for du­ty over the Car­ni­val long week­end as com­pared to last year, the TTPS had a 16 per cent ab­sen­teeism rate.

Pres­i­dent of the TTPS’ So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion In­sp Micheal Seales said the four-day leave and ex­tra pay of­fered by the CoP was the “norm” and added that it was sat­is­fac­to­ry and the as­so­ci­a­tion had no ob­jec­tion.