Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

A num­ber of po­lice of­fi­cers across var­i­ous units and sec­tions are de­mand­ing an ur­gent ex­pla­na­tion from au­thor­i­ties, claim­ing they have not yet re­ceived their salaries for the month of Oc­to­ber.

Since Oc­to­ber 24, nu­mer­ous of­fi­cers have been ex­press­ing alarm over the de­layed pay­ments, with many not­ing that wait­ing for salaries past the 27th was “un­heard of.”

In pri­vate What­sApp groups used by of­fi­cers of var­i­ous units and sec­tions, dis­grun­tled po­lice­men and women have claimed that the de­lay in di­rect-de­posit pay­ments is di­rect­ly im­pact­ing their work. They said their morale and per­for­mance were be­ing neg­a­tive­ly af­fect­ed by the un­cer­tain­ty and de­lay in hav­ing funds wired to their bank ac­counts.

One of­fi­cer as­signed to a Task Force in a di­vi­sion along the east-west cor­ri­dor said nei­ther he nor his col­leages were giv­en any clear ex­pla­na­tion as to what led to the de­lay in their salaries reach­ing their ac­counts.

He not­ed that a lack of com­mu­ni­ca­tion was “dis­ap­point­ing” es­pe­cial­ly giv­en the close­ness to the Christ­mas pe­ri­od.

“We can un­der­stand if an er­ror hap­pened or if there was a glitch in the bank­ing process­es or what­ev­er... but we at least need the as­sur­ance that the TTPS or the Min­istry (of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty) is aware of what is go­ing on.

“We on­ly have No­vem­ber and De­cem­ber left for the year... what’s to stop this from hap­pen­ing again? We don’t know.”

The of­fi­cer said that as he and his col­leagues are ex­pect­ed to con­tin­ue their work as the State of Emer­gency (SoE) is ex­pect­ed to be ex­tend­ed for an ad­di­tion­al three months, bud­get­ing one’s ex­pens­es and house­hold fi­nances was crit­i­cal.

One source said that of­fi­cers who had ac­counts with RBC Bank had al­ready re­ceived their salaries, while oth­er ac­count hold­ers were not paid.

This changed by 2 pm on Thurs­day when First Cit­i­zens Bank ac­count hold­ers claimed to re­ceive their salaries, while oth­ers were yet to re­ceive their salaries.

When con­tact­ed for com­ment act­ing pres­i­dent of the TTPS So­cial Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion (TTPSS­WA) ASP Ish­mael Pitt said he has re­ceived com­plaints from of­fi­cers over the late is­suance of salaries and spoke with of­fi­cials in the ad­min­is­tra­tion of the TTPS who did not pro­vide a spe­cif­ic time­frame for pay­ment, but promised that it would be ad­dressed “with­in the short­est pos­si­ble time.”

Pitt how­ev­er not­ed that based on what he was told, the de­lay in the pay­ment of salaries ap­peared to be due to a “bank­ing is­sue” as of­fi­cers bank­ing with one bank re­ceived their salaries on time, while oth­ers re­mained un­paid.

He said the as­so­ci­a­tion would seek to meet with of­fi­cials from the af­fect­ed banks to see how these is­sues could be avoid­ed in the fu­ture.

“What we will have to do is de­ter­mine which banks this is oc­cur­ring with, have a con­ver­sa­tion with the stake­hold­ers and let them know the im­pact this is hav­ing on our of­fi­cers, be­cause when we work we look for­ward to re­ceiv­ing our mon­ey on time.

“So that will be the step for­ward in treat­ing with those banks.”

Guardian Me­dia Ltd sought a re­sponse from the Bank­ing As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (BATT) on the mat­ter, how­ev­er com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­ag­er Dix­ie-Ann Dick­son not­ed that they were un­able to com­ment.

She urged Guardian Me­dia to con­tact af­fect­ed banks di­rect­ly as “each bank may have a dif­fer­ent ex­pe­ri­ence.”

Re­spond­ing to Guardian Me­dia’s ques­tions via What­sApp Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo says he has asked for a re­port on the al­le­ga­tion of de­layed pay­ments for po­lice of­fi­cers.