Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro has as­sured a group of for­mer Spe­cial Re­serve Po­lice of­fi­cers (SRPs) that the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) is work­ing to pay them their court-or­dered salary ar­rears af­ter they were ab­sorbed in­to the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) al­most two decades ago.

Gue­var­ro gave the as­sur­ance yes­ter­day af­ter a hand­ful of the of­fi­cers, who re­tired with the is­sue still un­re­solved, staged a silent protest out­side the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing in Port-of-Spain.

Re­spond­ing to the of­fi­cers’ com­plaints over de­lays in mak­ing the pay­ments af­ter a High Court Judge up­held their case in Feb­ru­ary, Gue­var­ro said, “I re­main com­mit­ted to re­solv­ing this is­sue with fair­ness and re­spect for all in­volved.”

“While I un­der­stand the frus­tra­tion ex­pressed by those af­fect­ed, es­pe­cial­ly the re­tirees fac­ing fi­nan­cial strain, I as­sure all stake­hold­ers that this mat­ter is re­ceiv­ing the high­est lev­el of at­ten­tion,” he added.

How­ev­er, Gue­var­ro ques­tioned the tim­ing of the protest ac­tion, as he not­ed that he in­her­it­ed the is­sue, which arose un­der the tenures of his pre­de­ces­sors.

“Nonethe­less, the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty now falls on me, and up­hold­ing the rule of law as well as ho­n­our­ing our com­mit­ments to those who served is not on­ly a le­gal oblig­a­tion but a moral one,” he said.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia dur­ing the protest, one of the af­fect­ed of­fi­cers, John Hen­ry, called on Gue­var­ro to take ur­gent ac­tion so that he and his for­mer col­leagues could ben­e­fit from their le­gal vic­to­ry, un­like oth­er col­leagues, who passed away with the is­sue still un­re­solved.

“We are ask­ing for the Com­mis­sion­er to ac­tu­al­ly let it hap­pen. We are here to let the com­mis­sion­er know we want what is due to us.

“We have served and served well, so it is time for us to be paid,” Hen­ry said.

He said that he and his re­tired col­leagues were al­so ex­pe­ri­enc­ing de­lays in re­ceiv­ing their pen­sions and gra­tu­ities af­ter at­tain­ing re­tire­ment age.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, pres­i­dent of the Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion, Gideon Dick­son, con­firmed that he had en­quired about the is­sue and TTPS was cur­rent­ly cal­cu­lat­ing the in­di­vid­ual en­ti­tle­ments of the of­fi­cers.

“I know that they are pro­cess­ing with a view of mak­ing pay­ment to the of­fi­cers in the short­est pos­si­ble time,” Dick­son said.

In their court fil­ings, ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, the group claimed that they were work­ing as full-time SRP dri­vers when they were ab­sorbed in­to the TTPS in late 2009.

At the time, their salaries were sup­posed to be ad­just­ed in ac­cor­dance with the Clas­si­fi­ca­tion and Com­pen­sa­tion Plan for 2005-2007.

A Cab­i­net note was pre­pared al­lo­cat­ing $10,983,600 to make retroac­tive pay­ments to 270 SRPs, in­clud­ing the even­tu­al lit­i­gants.

“The al­lo­ca­tion of this mon­ey, when tak­en with the Cab­i­net Note and Minute, meant that the Claimants ac­quired a le­git­i­mate ex­pec­ta­tion to have the said retroac­tive pay­ment cal­cu­lat­ed and paid,” their lawyers said.

“The De­fen­dant has act­ed ir­ra­tional­ly and/or un­rea­son­ably by fail­ing to act on the said rep­re­sen­ta­tions made by way of the Cab­i­net Min­utes and/or note,” they added.

When the of­fi­cers, through their lawyers led by Kiel Tak­lals­ingh, sent le­gal cor­re­spon­dence threat­en­ing le­gal ac­tion in 2022, the TTPS Le­gal Unit claimed that the de­lay in rec­ti­fy­ing the is­sue was due to dif­fi­cul­ties in se­cur­ing work­sheets for the of­fi­cers need­ed to cal­cu­late their salary ar­rears.

When the unit even­tu­al­ly ob­tained the doc­u­ments, it claimed that the then-Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er need­ed time to con­sid­er them.

The of­fi­cers filed the case af­ter they failed to re­ceive an ad­e­quate re­sponse by May 2023.

In de­cid­ing the case, Jus­tice Joan Charles is­sued a se­ries of de­c­la­ra­tions over the han­dling of the is­sue. She al­so grant­ed an or­der com­pelling the TTPS to make the pay­ments to the of­fi­cers.