Kali­fa Clyne

De­fence Force of­fi­cers, which com­prise mem­bers of the Coast Guard, Air Guard and T&T Reg­i­ment, are still wait­ing on fi­nal ap­proval from Cab­i­net for salary in­creas­es.

The De­fence Force signed an agree­ment on Sep­tem­ber 5 with Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer Stephanie Lewis for the ne­go­ti­a­tion pe­ri­od of Jan­u­ary 2011 to De­cem­ber 2013.

While the agree­ment was a re­lief to many cur­rent and re­tired of­fi­cers, the ne­go­ti­a­tions are still not up to date.

The source said pen­sion­ers, who would have been af­fect­ed by ne­go­ti­a­tions with­in that pe­ri­od, would al­so have their pay­ments ad­just­ed and would re­ceive back pay.

Ac­cord­ing to a source, the doc­u­ments con­tain­ing the agree­ment went to the Min­istry of Fi­nance in Sep­tem­ber.

In or­der to ob­tain fi­nal ap­proval, a Cab­i­net Note would need to be pre­pared for the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Colm Im­bert to lay be­fore the Cab­i­net.

In Ju­ly, po­lice of­fi­cers ac­cept­ed a 14 per cent in­crease from the CPO.

The in­crease for the De­fence Force was said to be around 15 per cent.

The source said sev­er­al serv­ing and re­tired mem­bers of the De­fence Force had raised con­cerns over the lengthy ne­go­ti­a­tion progress for re­vised pay and al­lowances.

The De­fence Force is not rep­re­sent­ed by any trade union and is not, like oth­er na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies, al­lowed to take in­dus­tri­al ac­tion.

Sev­er­al of­fi­cers said they feared hav­ing a bleak Christ­mas and com­plained of hav­ing out­stand­ing loans and oth­er fi­nan­cial com­mit­ments as well as fam­i­lies to sup­port.

They hoped the process would be com­plet­ed as soon as pos­si­ble.