Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@guardian.co.tt

​​​​​

The Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer (CPO) has main­tained the Gov­ern­ment’s five per cent salary of­fer for the 2020–2022 bar­gain­ing pe­ri­od for the TTPS and Fire Ser­vice, even as their rep­re­sen­ta­tive unions con­tin­ue to press for high­er in­creas­es.

The po­si­tion was re­it­er­at­ed dur­ing a meet­ing be­tween Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer Daryl Din­di­al and the ex­ec­u­tive of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion (TTPSS­WA) at the of­fices of the Per­son­nel De­part­ment.

The as­so­ci­a­tion, led by pres­i­dent Ish­mael Pitt, in­di­cat­ed that while it has not ac­cept­ed the of­fer, it will sub­mit a for­mal writ­ten re­sponse to the pro­pos­al, which was dat­ed April 11, 2025.

The mat­ter formed part of con­tin­ued dis­cus­sions be­tween the par­ties on out­stand­ing salary ne­go­ti­a­tions, with ref­er­ence made to the last en­gage­ment on De­cem­ber 9, 2025, when the as­so­ci­a­tion was ad­vised to pro­vide a for­mal re­sponse to the Gov­ern­ment’s of­fer.

Oth­er is­sues dis­cussed dur­ing the meet­ing in­clud­ed the job eval­u­a­tion ex­er­cise, the group health plan, pen­sion re­form and mat­ters con­cern­ing mu­nic­i­pal po­lice of­fi­cers.

The TTPSS­WA said it re­mains com­mit­ted to en­gag­ing con­struc­tive­ly with the CPO on is­sues af­fect­ing the wel­fare and con­di­tions of ser­vice of its mem­bers and will con­tin­ue con­sul­ta­tions with its ex­ec­u­tive and wider mem­ber­ship as dis­cus­sions progress.

Din­di­al thanked Pitt and his ex­ec­u­tive for their con­tin­ued en­gage­ment and reaf­firmed the Per­son­nel De­part­ment’s com­mit­ment to main­tain­ing open and con­struc­tive di­a­logue on mat­ters af­fect­ing po­lice of­fi­cers.

Mean­while, the Fire Of­fi­cers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (FOA) has al­so in­di­cat­ed it will push for a sig­nif­i­cant­ly high­er in­crease.

FOA pres­i­dent Keone Guy said the as­so­ci­a­tion’s ini­tial pro­pos­al was for a 17 per cent salary in­crease, ar­gu­ing the fig­ure re­flects the loss of pur­chas­ing pow­er ex­pe­ri­enced by fire of­fi­cers over the past decade.

“Our ini­tial of­fer on the ta­ble was 17 per cent con­sis­tent with the loss of our pur­chas­ing pow­er over the past decade,” Guy said.

Guy said fire of­fi­cers were dis­ap­point­ed that Gov­ern­ment’s po­si­tion re­mains at five per cent but ac­knowl­edged ne­go­ti­a­tions are on­go­ing.

He said the as­so­ci­a­tion in­tends to sub­mit a coun­ter­pro­pos­al with­in the next few weeks af­ter con­sul­ta­tions with its mem­ber­ship and the First Di­vi­sion Of­fi­cers’ As­so­ci­a­tion.

In ad­di­tion to salary in­creas­es, the FOA said it is al­so seek­ing dis­cus­sions on the treat­ment of al­lowances at re­tire­ment, dis­par­i­ties in com­pen­sa­tion across pro­tec­tive ser­vices and the po­ten­tial im­pact of pro­posed changes to el­i­gi­bil­i­ty for Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Scheme ben­e­fits.