Geisha Kow­lessar

With the 2011 na­tion­al bud­get set to un­veil in one week, var­i­ous arms of the pro­tec­tive ser­vices are de­mand­ing bet­ter pay pack­ages, im­proved fa­cil­i­ties and equip­ment and greater re­spect by Gov­ern­ment. Pres­i­dent of the Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion, Sgt Anand Rame­sar, has been cham­pi­oning the cause of dis­grun­tled of­fi­cers for months, each time bla­tant­ly re­ject­ing Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer Stephanie Lewis' five per cent wage in­crease of­fer. Chief among the as­so­ci­a­tion's bud­getary rec­om­men­da­tion in­clude:

• Bet­ter re­tire­ment pack­ages.

Rame­sar said pen­sion would nor­mal­ly be cal­cu­lat­ed mi­nus al­lowances and in most cas­es that would amount to an av­er­age month­ly salary of a po­lice of­fi­cer, equat­ing be­tween $2,500 and $3,000.

• Im­proved eval­u­a­tion process.

The job eval­u­a­tion cri­te­ri­on, Rame­sar said, was out­dat­ed, as the 2002 mod­el was be­ing used.

"There must be a prop­er eval­u­a­tion of the job of po­lice of­fi­cers so that they can be placed in the prop­er salary range," Rame­sar added.

• More mon­ey for Spe­cial Re­serve Po­lice Of­fi­cers (SRPs) and mu­nic­i­pal po­lice of­fi­cers.

The as­so­ci­a­tion has rec­om­mend­ed that SRPs and mu­nic­i­pal of­fi­cers be giv­en $1,000 ex­tra since they work long hours and in many in­stances ex­pos­ing their lives to risk.

• Re­view pro­mo­tion process.

Rame­sar called for im­me­di­ate re­view of the leg­is­la­tion, call­ing for at least two pro­mo­tion ad­vi­so­ry boards to sit at the same time. He said as it ex­ist­ed, on­ly one would board could sit to deal with the is­sue of pro­mo­tion. That is a lengthy process be­cause it nor­mal­ly takes a year for the process to be com­plet­ed," he said. "If there were two boards, that time would be cut in half paving the way for a speed­i­er pro­mo­tion process of oth­er ranks," Rame­sar added.

He said Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar would have wit­nessed the com­mit­ment of po­lice of­fi­cers who would have gone above and be­yond the call of du­ty, es­pe­cial­ly since the State of Emer­gency was im­ple­ment­ed on Au­gust 21, 2011. "Of­fi­cers are burnt out, they are tired," he said. "The prime min­is­ter could be guid­ed by her com­ment on the sup­port of of­fi­cers dur­ing this pe­ri­od. "It would send a death blow to the very lit­tle morale that ex­ists should this per­for­mance not be treat­ed favourably in the Po­lice Ser­vice."

Re­peat­ed bud­getary pleas-Fire Ser­vice

For the last five years, the Fire Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tion has been plead­ing for breath­ing equip­ment, said the as­so­ci­a­tion's pres­i­dent Charles Ram­sa­roop yes­ter­day. He said the ser­vice con­sist­ed 2,500 of­fi­cers and out of that fig­ure there was one quar­ter breath­ing ap­pa­ra­tus avail­able to of­fi­cers. "Ide­al­ly every of­fi­cer should have his own breath­ing ap­pa­ra­tus set...Even to fight bush fires we need to be prop­er­ly pro­tect­ed," Ram­sa­roop said. "It is un­hy­gien­ic to bor­row a set from an­oth­er of­fi­cer and for the past five years were have been mak­ing this point."

Say­ing with the pass­ing of each bud­get fire of­fi­cers of­ten felt ne­glect­ed, Ram­sa­roop's de­mands in­clud­ed:

• $1,000 salary in­crease for all fire of­fi­cers;

• in­creased pen­sion plan;

• im­proved fa­cil­i­ties and more mod­ern work­ing con­di­tions, es­pe­cial­ly at the Bel­mont, San Fer­nan­do and San Juan Fire Sta­tions; and

• prop­er main­te­nance of ve­hi­cles.

Ram­sa­roop said be­cause spare parts were of­ten dif­fi­cult to source, ve­hi­cles were not func­tion at their max­i­mum ca­pa­bil­i­ty. "We have ve­hi­cles work­ing at be­tween 70 and 80 per cent, but that is not what we want es­pe­cial­ly since our work in­volves life and death sit­u­a­tions," he said.

Greater se­cu­ri­ty for pris­ons

Im­proved se­cu­ri­ty at all the na­tion's pris­ons were high on the agen­da for Pris­ons As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Ra­jku­mar Ram­roop. "If we need to have greater checks and bal­ances se­cu­ri­ty must be at its op­ti­mum and Gov­ern­ment must pump more mon­ey in­to this," he said. Oth­ers mea­sures the as­so­ci­a­tion called on Gov­ern­ment to im­ple­ment in­clud­ed:

• prop­er train­ing and re­train­ing of of­fi­cers on a con­sis­tent ba­sis;

• a new prison for To­ba­go which Ram­roop said has been the as­so­ci­a­tion's calls for "decades;"

• a more ef­fi­cient and larg­er ves­sel to trans­port of­fi­cers and pris­on­ers to the Car­erra prison; and

• im­ple­men­ta­tion of prop­er re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion mea­sures.