Resh­ma Ra­goonath

With new­ly ap­point­ed Com­mis­sion­er Cana­di­an Dwayne Gibbs set to take up of­fice lat­er this month, re­tired First Di­vi­sion of­fi­cers have ex­pressed hope that their re­mu­ner­a­tion pack­ages will al­so be en­hanced. Re­tired As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er Po­lice Pe­ter John made the com­ment as the First Di­vi­sion ho­n­oured ACP (South) John King who passed the stew­ard­ship of the South­ern di­vi­sion to ACP Fitzroy Fredrick on Fri­day when he for­mal­ly re­tired af­ter 39 years of un­blem­ished ser­vice on the job. John, speak­ing at King's or­der of ser­vice re­tire­ment func­tion at Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion build­ing, Court Street, San Fer­nan­do, said the re­wards sys­tem for of­fi­cers "must change."

Of­fi­cers urged re­tired ACP King to take a cruise and en­joy his re­tire­ment, how­ev­er John said, "they talk about the joy of re­tire­ment but not about wealth." This, he said, is about to change since the ser­vice is see­ing "new lev­els" re­fer­ring to the US$205,000 per an­num (TT$108,000 per month) salary for Gibbs. He said: "They can go on tours and cruis­es. The re­wards sys­tem in the ser­vice must change. The glo­ry of be­ing poor does not cut it, these days bills are high. We have risky jobs. I wish that those who re­tire af­ter us will not have to won­der about that trip."