Geisha Kow­lessar

The de­ci­sion to sus­pend all leave in­def­i­nite­ly will cause hav­oc on the phys­i­cal and men­tal well-be­ing of po­lice­men who are al­ready poor­ly com­pen­sat­ed, says pres­i­dent of the Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion act­ing In­sp Anand Rame­sar. He is call­ing for an im­me­di­ate per­for­mance au­dit in­to the man­age­ment of the Po­lice Ser­vice, say­ing the is­sue was not more of­fi­cers on the streets but rather how they are be­ing man­aged by the top brass.

He added: "The is­sue is not giv­ing po­lice more re­sources, it is one of prop­er man­age­ment. "The as­so­ci­a­tion be­lieves if the Prime Min­is­ter looks at what is hap­pen­ing in­ter­nal­ly in the Po­lice Ser­vice, she would mit­i­gate the dis­en­chant­ment that is hap­pen­ing now." Rame­sar was re­spond­ing to state­ments by the PM, who said no of­fi­cer, from top to bot­tom, would be en­ti­tled to va­ca­tion now.

At an emer­gency meet­ing with mem­bers of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said that mea­sure was the lat­est in a string of an­ti-crime ini­tia­tives by the Gov­ern­ment in the wake of the spike in vi­o­lent crimes and mur­ders in the new year. Say­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar's de­ci­sion was "not sit­ting well with the mem­ber­ship," Rame­sar added po­lice­men "feel op­pressed."

He said that was be­cause many of­fi­cers had ap­plied for leave since last De­cem­ber but were de­nied it, ow­ing to the in­crease in po­lice ac­tiv­i­ties dur­ing the Christ­mas pe­ri­od. "This would mean of­fi­cers would have had to bring their leave for­ward in Jan­u­ary but all their plans have been dashed. "They are now con­front­ed by a sit­u­a­tion with no leave at all and this has caused se­ri­ous con­cern and dis­en­chant­ment," Rame­sar added.

He said the Po­lice Ser­vice owed "hun­dreds" of of­fi­cers mon­ey as a re­sult of their be­ing called out from va­ca­tion to work. "The as­so­ci­a­tion has writ­ten the act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice many times to have the is­sue ad­dressed and to date this has not been done. Clear­ly it re­mains an is­sue and it is go­ing to af­fect per­for­mance," Rame­sar added. Say­ing Car­ni­val was right around the cor­ner, he said that was a time when of­fi­cers had to work ex­tra du­ty.

"What this could re­sult in is few of­fi­cers be­ing as­signed to func­tions. So if there were nine of­fi­cers as­signed to a fete, that num­ber would now be de­creased," Rame­sar added. He said he was dis­ap­point­ed that be­fore the de­ci­sion was made to freeze leave, the as­so­ci­a­tion was not con­sult­ed. Rame­sar added: "In a mat­ter like this, good in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions prac­tice would re­quire there ought to be con­sul­ta­tion with the as­so­ci­a­tion, es­pe­cial­ly when it comes to al­ter­ing the terms and con­di­tions of em­ploy­ment of po­lice of­fi­cers.

We take this is­sue very se­ri­ous­ly." Asked if he be­lieved the move to sus­pend leave could re­sult in of­fi­cers stay­ing away from du­ty, Rame­sar said no of­fi­cer would de­lib­er­ate­ly do so. He said, how­ev­er, if an of­fi­cer was sick or burnt out then that per­son might want to get some rest. While the as­so­ci­a­tion threw its sup­port be­hind Per­sad- Bisses­sar in the fight against crime, Rame­sar said it in­tend­ed to write to ask to meet with her.

He added: "Her de­ci­sion has caused a high lev­el of dis­sat­is­fac­tion among of­fi­cers and this can­not con­tin­ue. "Every time some­thing goes wrong, you call po­lice of­fi­cers out and they con­tin­ue to be burnt out." The as­so­ci­a­tion is ex­pect­ed to meet with its mem­ber­ship to­day at the Besson Street Po­lice Sta­tion, Portof- Spain.