Yvonne Ba­boolal

To a vol­ley of gun­shots from the near­by hills of John John, Laven­tille, po­lice of­fi­cers yes­ter­day read the ri­ot act to act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Stephen Williams, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Gary Grif­fith and, by ex­ten­sion, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.Meet and treat with them with­in sev­en days on their burn­ing and long­stand­ing griev­ance of pro­mo­tion, or they may be forced to re-eval­u­ate the PM's de­mand for all leave for po­lice of­fi­cers to be put on in­def­i­nite hold.Pres­i­dent of the Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion, Sgt Anand Rame­sar, said: "We want a meet­ing with the min­is­ter and the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice with­in sev­en days. We are even call­ing for the in­ter­ven­tion of the Prime Min­is­ter."First to qual­i­fy, first to be pro­mot­ed. We want the is­sue of pro­mo­tion to be dealt with first and fore­most."

He and sec­re­tary Sgt Michael Seales, sur­round­ed by a large and live­ly group of of­fi­cers, made the an­nounce­ment at the as­so­ci­a­tion's head­quar­ters at the Besson Street Po­lice Sta­tion, Port-of-Spain.Rame­sar spoke of "reci­procity.""They are call­ing for mem­bers to give up va­ca­tion leave, et cetera. We are say­ing we are on board and we want to work–if, in the next sev­en days, we meet and de­cide on reci­procity. Give me what I am en­ti­tled to."Asked for their rec­om­men­da­tions in the crime fight, Seales replied, "Cor­rect the in­ter­nal is­sues and you would see some lev­el of ac­tiv­i­ty much bet­ter than in the last eight years."Their stand came two days af­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar, chair of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil (NSC), told its mem­bers they would be held per­son­al­ly ac­count­able if the hor­rif­ic crime rate is not al­le­vi­at­ed. She said with the with­hold­ing of leave, all of­fi­cers, from top to bot­tom, would be on deck in the war against crime.

Rame­sar said yes­ter­day that 3,000 of the as­so­ci­a­tion's 4,500 of­fi­cers were af­fect­ed by the re­fusal to pro­mote them ac­cord­ing to mer­it. Con­sta­bles, cor­po­rals and sergeants were el­i­gi­ble. He said con­cerns were raised af­ter the 2012 pro­mo­tions about trans­paren­cy, ac­count­abil­i­ty and the process used to for­mu­late the mer­it list.The mat­ter went to court and the judge ruled in favour of the as­so­ci­a­tion and some 200 of­fi­cers were pro­mot­ed. But a large num­ber con­tin­ue to work and be paid in ranks be­neath what they de­serve, he said."It is un­fair to be work­ing for salaries we are not en­ti­tled to and do­ing ex­tra du­ty at ranks low­er than we should be in."Rame­sar said this has con­tributed to a great mea­sure of de­mo­ti­va­tion among po­lice of­fi­cers.