An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Even as they wel­comed the gov­ern­ment’s stat­ed in­ten­tion to re­cruit 500 new prison of­fi­cers as part of its’ com­mit­ment to im­prov­ing the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus, ‘ the Prison Of­fi­cers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (POA) yes­ter­day called for di­a­logue to en­sure it does not be­come an emp­ty promise or sim­ple rhetoric.

Hours af­ter Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo de­liv­ered his maid­en bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion in the Par­lia­ment, POA pres­i­dent Ger­ard Gor­don de­scribed the promised mea­sures as “en­cour­ag­ing.”

In a brief state­ment yes­ter­day, Gor­don ac­knowl­edged the promise to “Strength­en na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and cor­rec­tion­al ser­vices, par­tic­u­lar­ly the an­nounce­ment of new prison of­fi­cer re­cruits and planned in­fra­struc­ture up­grades.”

How­ev­er, he said, “While these mea­sures are en­cour­ag­ing, the as­so­ci­a­tion re­mains deeply con­cerned about the con­tin­ued rise in the cost of liv­ing and its im­pact on our of­fi­cers and their fam­i­lies.”

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty has been al­lo­cat­ed $6.366 bil­lion.

Gor­don re­it­er­at­ed, “The re­al­i­ty on the ground is that in­fla­tion, food prices, hous­ing, and util­i­ties con­tin­ue to erode re­al in­come.”

He in­sist­ed, “With­out a clear cost-of-liv­ing ad­just­ment or wage re­view mech­a­nism, many pub­lic of­fi­cers will find it in­creas­ing­ly dif­fi­cult to make ends meet.”

Point­ing out the ab­sence of spe­cif­ic time­lines for ad­dress­ing long-out­stand­ing over­time pay­ments and staffing short­ages, Gor­don ad­vised, “True re­form re­quires not on­ly new re­cruits but al­so prop­er re­sources, train­ing, and safe work­ing con­di­tions for all of­fi­cers.”

The POA head urged Gov­ern­ment, “To en­gage mean­ing­ful­ly with all pub­lic sec­tor unions and as­so­ci­a­tions to en­sure that the promis­es con­tained in this Bud­get are trans­lat­ed in­to tan­gi­ble im­prove­ments in the lives of those who serve.”

Mean­while, na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ex­pert and for­mer head of the Na­tion­al Op­er­a­tions Cen­tre (NOC), Dr Garvin Heer­ah, ap­plaud­ed the an­nounce­ment that the out­fit is be­ing placed un­der the am­bit of the TTPS.

He said, “The con­cept of op­er­a­tions, the CONOPS that was de­signed for the Na­tion­al Op­er­a­tions Cen­tre was not whol­ly and sole­ly a polic­ing cen­tre.”

“It was not a law en­force­ment on­ly cen­tre, but a cen­tre de­signed, out­fit­ted with the in­fra­struc­ture and of course, the sys­tems in­te­gra­tion for na­tion­al cri­sis, na­tion­al op­er­a­tions.”

Heer­ah ad­vised, “If that is now be­ing shift­ed for the Na­tion­al Op­er­a­tions Cen­tre to be in­te­grat­ed un­der the TTPS, then of course the pow­ers that we will now have to re­view and re­vis­it the con­cept of op­er­a­tions and reau­thor that so as to treat as a law en­force­ment crime-fight­ing tool, which is not how it was de­signed.”

He ques­tioned if the TTPS would now be ap­proach­ing and co­or­di­nat­ing na­tion­al op­er­a­tions as well as in­ter-agency op­er­a­tions, and joint op­er­a­tions in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, us­ing the NOC to de­ter­mine sit­u­a­tion­al aware­ness and en­sure re­al-time de­ci­sion mak­ing.