The Trinidad and To­ba­go Prison Ser­vice First Di­vi­sion Of­fi­cers’ As­so­ci­a­tion has signed a Mem­o­ran­dum of Agree­ment (MoA) ac­cept­ing Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer Dr Daryl Din­di­al’s four per cent of­fer for the pe­ri­ods 2014-2016 and 2017-2019.

The Prison Ser­vice now joins the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial & Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion and the Amal­ga­mat­ed Work­ers’ Union in ac­cept­ing the CPO’s four per cent of­fer.

In a re­lease is­sued yes­ter­day evening, CPO Din­di­al thanked the First Di­vi­sion for its de­ci­sion to ac­cept the Gov­ern­ment’s fi­nal of­fer.

He added that while it would have been ide­al for both as­so­ci­a­tions to sign off, since it is one in­sti­tu­tion with one com­pen­sa­tion and clas­si­fi­ca­tion plan, there was no rea­son to fur­ther de­lay the ac­cep­tance of the First Di­vi­sion’s rep­re­sen­ta­tive union.

The re­lease stat­ed that Din­di­al re­mains hope­ful that the Sec­ond Di­vi­sion As­so­ci­a­tion will now re­con­sid­er its po­si­tion and ac­cept the of­fer.

“Dur­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions, the First Di­vi­sion As­so­ci­a­tion ad­vanced a num­ber of is­sues to as­sist the Trinidad and To­ba­go Prison Ser­vice in de­liv­er­ing its man­date. Apart from the four per cent salary in­crease, there were ad­just­ments to al­lowances such as Plain Clothes, Meals, Laun­dry, Spe­cial Re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, Trav­el­ling, Cost of Liv­ing Al­lowance (CO­LA), as well as a lump sum pay­ment of $4,000 to of­fi­cers who re­tired com­pul­so­ri­ly, vol­un­tar­i­ly, with per­mis­sion on the grounds of ill­ness for the pe­ri­od 2014-2015,” the re­lease stat­ed.

Din­di­al ac­knowl­edged the crit­i­cal role of the Prison Ser­vice in sup­port­ing the na­tion’s over­all se­cu­ri­ty re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

He added that is­sues sur­round­ing the re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion and so­cial rein­te­gra­tion of pris­on­ers “are be­com­ing more com­plex but it re­mains crit­i­cal to im­prove crime pre­ven­tion rates and achieve the goal of restora­tive jus­tice.”

The CPO al­so thanked the ded­i­cat­ed men and women of the Prison Ser­vice for their “con­tin­ued com­mit­ment to the ex­e­cu­tion of their du­ties.”

In Au­gust last year, the T&T Fire Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion re­ject­ed the Gov­ern­ment’s four per cent salary in­crease of­fer. The Joint Trade Union Move­ment (JTUM) and the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion are the two trade unions which have al­so re­ject­ed the CPO’s four per cent of­fer.