KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

Es­tate po­lice of­fi­cers and pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty firms say they are hope­ful but hes­i­tant that se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers would be made a pri­or­i­ty if the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) forms the next gov­ern­ment.

They were re­spond­ing to Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s pledge of $1 mil­lion in com­pen­sa­tion for the fam­i­lies of se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers killed on du­ty once she wins the gen­er­al elec­tion.

Some se­cu­ri­ty firms said they were re­luc­tant to be­lieve Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s promise since politi­cians have made sim­i­lar promis­es in the past.

How­ev­er, the Es­tate Po­lice As­so­ci­a­tion (EPA) and some firms are in­ter­est­ed in see­ing the promise through.

Pres­i­dent of the EPA Deryck Richard­son said it was some­thing the as­so­ci­a­tion had been lob­by­ing for but had faced dif­fi­cul­ty in fi­nal­is­ing a plan from in­sur­ance com­pa­nies.

He said he is very in­ter­est­ed and hope­ful that, if elect­ed, Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s gov­ern­ment will get it done.

“Of course, we would be very, very in­ter­est­ed in see­ing how the dy­nam­ics of that would work which would mean that the se­cu­ri­ty com­pa­nies them­selves would have to buy in­to it,” he said.

“If the UNC does win the elec­tion and they are se­ri­ous about pur­su­ing that prob­a­bly from a gov­ern­men­tal stand­point, some­thing could be worked out.”

Head of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Pri­vate Se­cu­ri­ty As­so­ci­a­tion (TTP­SA) and chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer (CEO) of Fortress Se­cu­ri­ty, Car­los Nep­tune, said he too is hope­ful.

“If that is so, I am very hap­py be­cause it is some­thing that at the as­so­ci­a­tion and at the com­pa­ny lev­el, we have been talk­ing about al­so,” he said.

Nep­tune said the TTP­SA is al­so will­ing to work with the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) to as­sist in fight­ing crime.

In­no­v­a­tive Se­cu­ri­ty Tech­nolo­gies Lim­it­ed Pe­te Car­ring­ton did not want to com­ment on the is­sue.

How­ev­er, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les ac­cused the Op­po­si­tion of try­ing to copy the gov­ern­ment by of­fer­ing $1 mil­lion to fam­i­lies, af­ter the gov­ern­ment of­fered the same ex gra­tia pay­ment to the fam­i­ly of a Coast Guard of­fi­cer.

“They have al­ways been a pri­or­i­ty. Kam­la is a copy­cat! Last week Cab­i­net took a de­ci­sion to of­fer a $1 mil­lion ex gra­tia pay­ment to the fam­i­ly of the Coast Guard sea­man that went miss­ing at sea dur­ing a spe­cial ex­er­cise on the ter­ri­to­r­i­al wa­ters off Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“This is tes­ti­mo­ny to the gov­ern­ment’s com­mit­ment to our men and women who serve us. Un­der my lead­er­ship of the min­istry, I in­tend to work close­ly with all as­so­ci­a­tions rep­re­sent­ing our ser­vice men and women to get im­proved work­ing con­di­tions,” he said.

Gon­za­les asked how the op­po­si­tion planned to fund the al­lo­ca­tion to the fam­i­lies.

“What the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion is of­fer­ing is an elec­tion ruse be­cause first, the state can on­ly of­fer com­pen­sa­tion on the ba­sis of some es­tab­lished le­gal li­a­bil­i­ty. What is the ba­sis for pay­ing com­pen­sa­tion with­out es­tab­lished li­a­bil­i­ty?” he asked.

“Sec­ond­ly, pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers are not em­ployed with the state. They have their own em­ploy­ers. How is the state go­ing to in­sert it­self in this arrange­ment? What about laws to en­sure that their em­ploy­ers have ad­e­quate in­sur­ance poli­cies in place to pay them or their fam­i­lies in the event of an of­fi­cer los­ing his/her life in the course of du­ty?

“Kam­la doesn’t seem to be think­ing straight these days. She’s just read­ing what some­one is writ­ing and giv­ing it to her. That should con­cern all of us.”