The lead­ers of T&T’s var­i­ous se­cu­ri­ty sec­tors - Po­lice, De­fence Force, Fire & Pris­ons - are ex­pect­ed to meet to­day with Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cials on Gov­ern­ment’s call to have pub­lic sec­tor work­ers vac­ci­nat­ed by mid-Jan­u­ary or be fur­loughed.

This was con­firmed yes­ter­day by Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cials.

The top brass helm­ing se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies are ex­pect­ed to meet with Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds and oth­er of­fi­cials. That meet­ing is ex­pect­ed to up­date lead­ers on the plan and oth­er dis­cus­sions in­clud­ing the re­spec­tive sec­tors’ sta­tus.

But there was no re­sponse from Gov­ern­ment yes­ter­day to Guardian Me­dia’s queries as fur­ther calls against manda­to­ry vac­ci­na­tion in state sec­tors arose.

How­ev­er, the Pro­tec­tive Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion in­volv­ing en­ti­ties rep­re­sent­ing se­cu­ri­ty sec­tor work­ers - Po­lice, Fire, Pris­ons - re­mains ready to speak with the Prime Min­is­ter on the mat­ter.

This, af­ter last Sun­day’s state­ments by the as­so­ci­a­tion against last Sat­ur­day’s an­nounce­ment by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley on mak­ing pub­lic ser­vice sec­tors safe zones. This in­volves work­ers in that sec­tor be­ing vac­ci­nat­ed by mid-Jan­u­ary.

If not, they will re­main at home mi­nus pay.

The heads had re­ject­ed Gov­ern­ment’s plan as a vi­o­la­tion of the terms and con­di­tions of their agree­ment. They called for a state­ment from Gov­ern­ment on work­ers’ con­cerns over claims of li­a­bil­i­ty for ad­verse re­ac­tions as­so­ci­at­ed with the vac­ci­na­tion and they de­mand­ed com­pen­sa­tion for work­ing since the start of the pan­dem­ic with­out leave or fur­ther ben­e­fits.

They voiced their views in a let­ter to Row­ley. The let­ter was to be de­liv­ered by a Pris­ons Of­fi­cers As­so­ci­a­tion rep­re­sen­ta­tive, Po­lice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Gideon Dick­son said.

He had said the as­so­ci­a­tion was seek­ing a meet­ing with Row­ley be­fore the end of the week.

Yes­ter­day At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi told Guardian Me­dia he was in meet­ings and couldn’t speak. Hinds didn’t an­swer.

Ac­cord­ing to fig­ures giv­en by Row­ley on vac­ci­na­tions in the se­cu­ri­ty sec­tor, the high­est rate of vaxxed of­fi­cers was in the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) - 49 per cent.

Act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob didn’t an­swer calls on the as­so­ci­a­tion’s state­ment and re­spons­es by TTPS of­fi­cers to Gov­ern­ment’s vac­ci­na­tion call.

For­mer Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith on Sun­day didn’t re­ply whether he sup­port­ed the Gov­ern­ment’s call but not­ed that in his tenure he’d pushed a heavy pro­gramme to get as many of­fi­cers to be vac­ci­nat­ed.

The low­est vac­ci­na­tion lev­el is in the Fire Ser­vices - 20 per cent.

Chief Fire Of­fi­cer Arnold Bris­tow said he’s hop­ing of­fi­cers re­spond, “Since COVID-19 is a big is­sue threat­en­ing every­body.”

Fires Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (Sec­ond Di­vi­sion) pres­i­dent Leo Ramkissoon said he’s meet­ing his ex­ec­u­tive this morn­ing on the mat­ter.

“I’m al­so pre­pared to go to the Prime Min­is­ter’s Of­fice with the Joint Trade Union Move­ment (JTUM) on the is­sue,” he said.

Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons Den­nis Pul­chan said yes­ter­day, “I was among se­cu­ri­ty heads who got vac­ci­nat­ed but our rate in prison is on­ly about 35 per cent of of­fi­cers. I can’t say why, but I tru­ly hope they heed the vac­ci­na­tion calls since we’re not see­ing an end to T&T’s COVID cas­es and vari­ants and prison of­fi­cers are among the ill.”

Pris­ons Of­fi­cers As­so­ci­a­tion head Ceron Richards said, “We’re ques­tion­ing the re­li­a­bil­i­ty of fig­ures the Prime Min­is­ter gave on of­fi­cers’ vac­ci­na­tion rate since no sur­vey was ever tak­en by prison man­age­ment on how many of­fi­cers are vac­ci­nat­ed.’’

Oth­er prison of­fi­cers, said they recog­nised the se­ri­ous­ness of the COVID sit­u­a­tion since one of­fi­cer got it and his par­ents con­tract­ed it and both died. They said he got vac­ci­nat­ed af­ter. But they said Gov­ern­ment should have con­sult­ed se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies.