Police executive walk out on National Security minister

It seems that a communication mixup may have caused members of the Police Social Welfare Association to refuse to meet with National Security Minister Brig. John Sandy Thursday.

All eight members of the association went to the minister's office for a meeting but Sandy's secretary advised the police officers that the minister would only be able to meet with the president of their association, Sgt Anand Ramesar, and three others.

Ramesar refused, saying it must be a meeting with all or none and walked out without meeting the minister.

The two parties were supposed to discuss several outstanding issues affecting senior police officers, including overtime and the settlement of salary negotiations, which were halted before the general elections in May.

Ramesar told reporters he found that the minister was divisive.

“We are totally disappointed with the action of the minister because it was an urgent opportunity to treat with outstanding issues and it did not happen,” he told the Newsday newspaper.

It seems that what caused the problem was that no one explained that the reason why the minister wanted to meet with four and not eight members of the association was because there was a lack of physical space for everyone.

Ramesar got angry and left when the minister insisted on meeting with only half of the police delegation, saying he found the minister to be "disrespectful".

This could lead to another problem. Now Ramesar is planning to meet with the executive the Police Second Division to update them on developments and urge them to refuse to work overtime.

And Ramesar is seeking an urgent meeting with Finance Minister Winston Dookeran to deal with the matter as well as other issues such as housing, promotions, judicial review cases, and what he called the "deplorable conditions" affecting officers of the Community Crime Prevention Unit.

Sandy may have been unable to deal with the issues even if he had met with the police officers.

Ramesar told NEWSDAY Chief Personnel Officer Stephanie Lewis told his association recently that she needs a directive from the finance minister to proceed with the discussions.