Geisha Kow­lessar

There will no po­lice pres­ence for Sun­day's Panora­ma semi­fi­nals and at all oth­er ma­jor Car­ni­val events.

So said pres­i­dent of the Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion In­sp Anand Rame­sar.

He added if Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar did not in­ter­vene im­me­di­ate­ly and set­tle salary ne­go­ti­a­tions be­fore Sun­day then the coun­try's se­cu­ri­ty would be threat­ened.

Speak­ing at a press con­fer­ence at the Besson Street Po­lice Sta­tion, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day Rame­sar said mem­bers of the Po­lice, Pris­ons and Fire Ser­vices were still re­ceiv­ing 2008 salaries.

His sen­ti­ments were echoed by pres­i­dent of the Pris­ons Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tion Ceron Richards and Leo Ramk­isoon, pres­i­dent of the Fire Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion.

Rame­sar claimed there was a "con­struc­tive de­lay" by the chief per­son­nel of­fi­cer to pro­ceed with salary ne­go­ti­a­tions.

He added: "What we are see­ing is a volatile sit­u­a­tion in the Po­lice Ser­vice and mem­bers have been call­ing us the en­tire day and in­di­cat­ing to us they are not go­ing to work for Panora­ma and that is a sit­u­a­tion which we con­sid­er to be ex­treme­ly wor­ri­some and a threat to pub­lic safe­ty.

"We are clear in our minds that it is not a sit­u­a­tion which the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice could treat with nor the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty.

"It is clear­ly a mem­ber­ship is­sue to the point where we need an in­ter­ven­tion by an au­thor­i­ty that can ad­dress the sit­u­a­tion," Rame­sar added.

He said the as­so­ci­a­tion be­lieved it did not have the morale au­thor­i­ty to sway mem­bers from stay­ing away from the job.

"The mem­bers be­lieve the CPO has been pro­cras­ti­nat­ing in pro­vid­ing the nec­es­sary in­for­ma­tion for salary ne­go­ti­a­tions to pro­ceed. No­body short of the Prime Min­is­ter could treat with this is­sue," Rame­sar added.

Richards said pris­ons of­fi­cers were frus­trat­ed and fed up, so much so that in­mates were brought to the re­spec­tive courts late yes­ter­day. He said based on the slow pace of ne­go­ti­a­tions the en­thu­si­asm of pris­ons of­fi­cers had dwin­dled.

He ac­cused the CPO of "rob­bing" po­lice, fire and pris­ons of­fi­cers of the op­por­tu­ni­ty to ne­go­ti­ate in an ef­fec­tive and prop­er man­ner.

"Just last week we met with the CPO and ef­forts to frus­trate the process con­tin­ue. Mem­bers of the Pris­ons Ser­vice have been frus­trat­ed where there is a se­ri­ous slow­down in the op­er­a­tions in the east and in Port-of-Spain," Richards added.

Ramk­isoon said he was al­so un­able to re­port to his mem­ber­ship as to where ne­go­ti­a­tions stood.

"We need to con­vey to our mem­bers a gen­uine at­tempt by the Gov­ern­ment to treat with the is­sues. We are see­ing clear­ly there is no re­al or gen­uine ef­fort to place and of­fer on the ta­ble," Ramk­isoon claimed.