Shane Su­perville 

Sev­er­al po­lice of­fi­cers say they have not yet re­ceived their Oc­to­ber salaries and are call­ing for an ur­gent ex­pla­na­tion from the au­thor­i­ties.

Of­fi­cers told Guardian Me­dia that since Oc­to­ber 24 they have been rais­ing con­cerns over the de­lay, not­ing that re­ceiv­ing salaries af­ter the 27th was “un­heard of.”

In sev­er­al What­sApp groups used by mem­bers of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS), of­fi­cers ex­pressed frus­tra­tion, say­ing the de­lay has af­fect­ed their morale and house­hold bud­get­ing.

One of­fi­cer as­signed to a Task Force along the east-west cor­ri­dor said nei­ther he nor his col­leagues were told what caused the de­lay. He de­scribed the lack of com­mu­ni­ca­tion as “dis­ap­point­ing,” es­pe­cial­ly so close to the Christ­mas sea­son.

“We can un­der­stand if an er­ror hap­pened or if there was a glitch in the bank­ing process­es or what­ev­er, but we at least need the as­sur­ance that the TTPS or the Min­istry (of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty) is aware of what is go­ing on,” he said. “We on­ly have No­vem­ber and De­cem­ber left for the year... what’s to stop this from hap­pen­ing again?”

Act­ing pres­i­dent of the TTPS So­cial Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion (TTPSS­WA) ASP Ish­mael Pitt con­firmed that the as­so­ci­a­tion has re­ceived sev­er­al com­plaints from of­fi­cers.

He said he has spo­ken with TTPS ad­min­is­tra­tive of­fi­cials who did not give a spe­cif­ic time­frame for pay­ment but as­sured that the is­sue would be re­solved “with­in the short­est pos­si­ble time.”

Pitt said pre­lim­i­nary in­for­ma­tion sug­gest­ed the de­lay may be linked to a “bank­ing is­sue,” as some of­fi­cers were paid on time while oth­ers were not.

He said the as­so­ci­a­tion will seek to meet with the af­fect­ed banks to pre­vent fu­ture de­lays.

“What we will have to do is de­ter­mine which banks this is oc­cur­ring with, have a con­ver­sa­tion with the stake­hold­ers and let them know the im­pact this is hav­ing on our of­fi­cers,” Pitt said. “When we work, we look for­ward to re­ceiv­ing our mon­ey on time.”