Camille Clarke

The $1,000 spe­cial al­lowance promised by the Gov­ern­ment to po­lice of­fi­cers un­der the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty will be paid at the end of April, ac­cord­ing to of­fi­cials. The al­lowance for the po­lice of­fi­cers was ex­tend­ed to oth­er mem­bers of the pro­tec­tive ser­vices in­clud­ing the Fire Ser­vice, the Pris­ons Ser­vice and the De­fence Force dur­ing the bud­get speech last year.

Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials said the mon­ey al­lo­cat­ed for the pay­ment was be­ing processed up to late yes­ter­day. How­ev­er, it will not be giv­en to the Spe­cial Re­serve Po­lice. Pres­i­dent of the Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion Sgt Anand Rame­sar yes­ter­day re­newed his call for the SRPs to re­ceive the al­lowance.

"I re­it­er­ate my call for the pay­ment to be made to them. We be­lieve there is jus­ti­fi­ca­tion. We have ad­vo­cat­ed for those of­fi­cers who work over 40 hours a week be giv­en the full al­lowance and the of­fi­cers who work less be giv­en a pro­por­tion­ate pay­ment," Rame­sar said.

He said the SRPs work as hard as oth­er of­fi­cers and some have even lost their lives in the line of du­ty. "There is jus­ti­fi­ca­tion. Even in the 1990 coup, the first fa­tal­i­ty was a SRP of­fi­cer. To refuse pay­ment of the al­lowance or part is in­sen­si­ble (sic) and un­rea­son­able and clear­ly demon­strates a lack of ap­pre­ci­a­tion of the sus­te­nance of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty," Rame­sar said.

Gen­er­al sec­re­tary of the Fire Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tion Mar­lon Forde said the fire­fight­ers were con­cerned that the al­lowance was not paid. "To date it has not been paid since it was men­tioned in the 2012 Bud­get and had to go for the nec­es­sary Cab­i­net ap­proval. We found this was un­ac­cept­able," Forde said. He al­leged that po­lice of­fi­cers had ben­e­fit­ed from the al­lowance with­out Cab­i­net ap­proval.

"We are con­cerned. The grant is not an in­crease in salary. The five per cent al­lo­cat­ed for re­tirees was neg­a­tive­ly af­fect­ed by just the five per cent al­lo­ca­tion to the salaries. "We be­lieve the grant should ap­ply as an in­crease in salary and mem­bers are rais­ing ques­tions on how the grant is paid. We would like the min­is­ter to spell out the dy­nam­ics of the grant."

Pres­i­dent of the Pris­ons Of­fi­cers' As­so­ci­a­tion Ra­jku­mar Ram­roop said back pay­ment of salaries was a con­cern. "I have been ad­vo­cat­ing for it (spe­cial al­lowance) for the longest time and we are press­ing for oth­er is­sues such as the back­pay. The deputy per­ma­nent sec­re­tary and Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons were there and told to en­sure it is paid. We are look­ing for­ward to that. If there are any prob­lems we will speak with the rel­e­vant peo­ple," Ram­roop said.