Benjamin defends TTPS absorption policy as SRPs walk out meeting

An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­[email protected]

A heat­ed T&T Po­lice Ser­vice meet­ing on Wednes­day led to a walk­out by some dis­grun­tled Spe­cial Re­serve Po­lice (SRP) of­fi­cers up­set with the cur­rent ab­sorp­tion pol­i­cy.

The of­fi­cers have raised is­sues over the pro­mo­tion­al op­por­tu­ni­ties and ab­sorp­tion cri­te­ria.

Re­spond­ing to con­cerns by SRPs yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, TTPS Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (DCP), Ad­min­is­tra­tion, Ju­nior Ben­jamin, said, “We will not leave you out in the cold, but we can­not con­tin­ue to op­er­ate as we have in the past.”

He in­sist­ed the cur­rent process is con­sis­tent and in keep­ing with a Cab­i­net note, which clear­ly out­lines the cri­te­ria SRPs must sat­is­fy be­fore they can be ab­sorbed in­to the TTPS.
This, he said, had led the ex­ec­u­tive to em­bark on a se­ries of meet­ings ad­vis­ing of­fi­cers of the metic­u­lous re­quire­ments and ad­dress­ing their con­cerns.

“We un­der­stand and ap­pre­ci­ate the val­ue these of­fi­cers have brought to the or­gan­i­sa­tion through the years,” Ben­jamin said.

In­di­cat­ing it was about bring­ing val­ue to the or­gan­i­sa­tion, he told the SRPs that sys­tems were be­ing in­tro­duced to en­sure pro­mo­tion­al op­por­tu­ni­ties were avail­able to them, as this was cur­rent­ly not in place.

He re­vealed that the SRPs seek­ing ab­sorp­tion were al­so be­ing asked to un­der­go poly­graph test­ing as one of the cri­te­ria, and to show that they had Eng­lish Lan­guage as part of their sub­ject of­fer­ings.
This, he claimed, had proven to be a sticky is­sue for some.

Asked to re­spond to claims by some of­fi­cers that on­ly five years of ser­vice were trans­fer­able and the re­main­ing years would be dis­count­ed, Ben­jamin de­nied this.

He ex­plained that while there was le­gal prece­dent to be con­sid­ered, the TTPS was “look­ing at it more care­ful­ly and would not want to make a pro­nounce­ment too soon.”

As a for­mer SRP him­self, Ben­jamin said, “It was heart­break­ing to see and hear these of­fi­cers com­plain­ing, but we are fo­cused on im­prov­ing the process to make sure all SRPs can have a bet­ter qual­i­ty of life, whether they are ab­sorbed in­to the TTPS or not.”

Even with high-lev­el meet­ings re­lat­ing to the ab­sorp­tion pro­gramme sched­uled – it is un­cer­tain if SRPs will em­bark on a sug­gest­ed sick-out.

Com­plain­ing of the hurt and dis­ap­point­ment, a male SRP with over 20 years of ser­vice, yes­ter­day said, “SRPs be­lieve they are be­ing slight­ed. They be­lieve that they are con­stant­ly be­ing dis­re­spect­ed.”

Ar­gu­ing that the pro­posed changes in the ab­sorp­tion cri­te­ria would leave hun­dreds of SRPs dis­en­fran­chised, he went on, “This is wrong. This is not an ab­sorp­tion, but re­cruit­ment all over again.”

Ac­cus­ing se­nior TTPS of­fi­cials of ut­ter­ing “dis­taste­ful state­ments which were on­ly sow­ing dis­cord,” the of­fi­cer said there are cur­rent­ly 1,075 of­fi­cers at the Bar­racks, who can sat­is­fy the cur­rent re­quire­ments.

“They will get the 800 from that,” he claimed.

“The fall­out from this is that it had of­fi­cers who sit down for 15 years and claimed to work re­al hard, but they nev­er went back to school to get their full cer­tifi­cate.”

“Some of them be­lieve they should just be al­lowed to join their coun­ter­parts in the TTPS, and that re­al­ly is what an ab­sorp­tion is.”

How­ev­er, he ad­mit­ted see­ing the side of the se­nior of­fi­cials, as he again said, “Plen­ty things would have been waived in the past be­cause of the po­lit­i­cal cli­mate at the time, but at this time when they are de­mand­ing so much more of of­fi­cers and you are ask­ing SRPs who are com­ing over in­to the reg­u­lar ser­vice to have a ba­sic pass in Eng­lish...and you telling me peo­ple vex for that?”

He added, “It is Eng­lish and poly­graph that have peo­ple in an up­roar right now be­cause plen­ty of them in­volved in a lot of non­sense.”

Say­ing all SRPs have had to pay for their med­ical tests since 2014, the of­fi­cer said a tight­en­ing of the purse strings in the past had led to this.

“The gov­ern­ment had stopped pay­ing for the med­ical, and left it on the onus of the ap­pli­cant to pay, so that is noth­ing new.

“The $2,750 is what any per­son off the street, com­ing to ap­ply...even in the army or any oth­er of the pro­tec­tive ser­vices, will have to pay now.”