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Wednesday, February 26, 2025

Prison and Fire Services unions want Public Service Commission replaced

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NEWS DESK
1818 days ago
20200305
The officers from the Prison and Fire Services staged their protest outside the offices of the Public Service Commission, in Port of Spain

The officers from the Prison and Fire Services staged their protest outside the offices of the Public Service Commission, in Port of Spain

GUARDIAN

Mem­bers of the Prison Ser­vice and Fire Ser­vice are call­ing on the Pres­i­dent of Trinidad and To­ba­go, Her Ex­cel­len­cy Paula Mae Weekes, to look in­to the Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC).

They say the Com­mis­sion has not been deal­ing with is­sues af­fect­ing both Ser­vices.

Pres­i­dent of the Prison Of­fi­cers’ As­so­ci­a­tion, Ceron Richards, says T&T is un­safe once mem­bers of the pro­tec­tive ser­vices are un­der the man­age­ment of the PSC, as they are not ful­fill­ing their man­date, and ap­pear to op­er­at­ing con­trary to the in­ter­ests of the re­spec­tive ser­vices and pub­lic of­fi­cers work­ing in them.

He cites sev­er­al out­stand­ing dis­ci­pli­nary mat­ters that the PSC has not dealt with. He al­so re­ports that the Com­mis­sion has be­gun pros­e­cut­ing mat­ters for which there were no in­ves­ti­ga­tions, re­fer­ring specif­i­cal­ly to the prison of­fi­cers who have been ac­cused of be­ing in­volved in the 2015 jail­break, and who have been on sus­pen­sion for sev­er­al years since.

“This Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion has far out­lived its use­ful­ness and rel­e­vance, and we need a so­lu­tion go­ing for­ward,” Ceron Richards states. “We need the Prime Min­is­ter, and most im­por­tant­ly, the Pres­i­dent of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go, Her Ex­cel­len­cy Jus­tice Paula Mae Weekes, to re­vis­it this sit­u­a­tion. It is not work­ing. The way this Com­mis­sion is op­er­at­ing now is un­con­sti­tu­tion­al.”

He added: “Just as the teach­ing ser­vice and the po­lice have their own gov­ern­ing com­mis­sions, we are call­ing for a Prison Ser­vice Com­mis­sion, and a Fire Ser­vice Com­mis­sion, as one of the so­lu­tions go­ing for­ward.”

The Prison and Fire Services officers are concerned the Public Service Commission is acting in a manner that is detrimental to the interests of public officers

The Prison and Fire Services officers are concerned the Public Service Commission is acting in a manner that is detrimental to the interests of public officers

GUARDIAN

And head of the Fire Of­fi­cers As­so­ci­a­tion, Leo Ramkissoon, is con­cerned that as first re­spon­ders, they have not been pro­vid­ed with pro­tec­tive gear nec­es­sary to re­duce their COVID-19 risk.

He said they wrote to the Chief Fire Of­fi­cer about these is­sues but said there is no pol­i­cy in place.

“We are on the verge of the in­tro­duc­tion of a pan­dem­ic in this coun­try and the fire of­fi­cers are on the front­line,” he says. “We are the ones who have to go on board an air­craft when a re­sponse is need­ed. We are the ones who will have to go in­to ve­hic­u­lar ac­ci­dents and ex­tract peo­ple, with­out know­ing who is in­fect­ed from who is not.”

He added: “Every call we go on is an emer­gency med­ical call. There­fore, fire of­fi­cers out to be out­fit­ted with the prop­er gloves and the N95 face masks. We haven’t been out­fit­ted with any of these.”

Leo Ramkissoon told Guardian Me­dia fire of­fi­cers refuse to give up and will con­tin­ue dis­charg­ing their du­ty, even though the Chief Fire Of­fi­cer has re­fused to ac­knowl­edge their con­cerns.


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