The Barbados Police Service will receive just over a $10 million boost as government approved a supplementary to cover overtime, allowances and the maintenance of its fleet of vehicles.
During today’s sitting of the House of Assembly, Leader of Government Business and Deputy Prime Minister, Santia Bradshaw gave notice of a resolution to grant the sum of $45, 536, 691 from the Consolidated Fund to be placed at the disposal of Government to supplement the Estimates 2021-2022.
Of that amount, $10.2 million was requested by the Office of the Attorney General. Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Dale Marshall said the single largest amount, $4.6 million would go towards paying salaries and allowances of the officers of the Barbados Police Service (BPS).
Marshall spoke of the tremendous challenge to keep boots on the ground as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic with the high number of officers who were either in isolation or quarantine having been infected or exposed to the coronavirus. He revealed that there were times when as many as 60 or 70 police officers were in isolation. This number accounted for more than five per cent of the total active service members. Consequently, unlike other general enterprises, the BPS, an essential service, cannot be closed because of infected numbers hence, service persons were required to work overtime.
“We don’t dare tell the country we cannot put boots on the ground because people are in isolation because of COVID. And then when you have people in isolation because of COVID, we’ve also had similar numbers in quarantine. So, there have been periods of time when we could have had and did have as much as 10 per cent or more of our service being unavailable to work. But we can’t close a station. . . . Invariably what would happen is [an officer] would complete his round of duty then be told he can’t go home because . . . he got to stay on and do additional work,” Marshall explained.
The AG noted that because of the commitment made by police officers, the island was able to maintain a “very secure and stable environment” in spite of the challenges.
“These are things we don’t talk about but they are the harsh realities that our law enforcement officers have to face. It is important for us to acknowledge and to thank the members of the Barbados Police Service and please afford me the opportunity to do so on this occasion; to thank them for working tirelessly and unfailingly during this COVID pandemic. It has disrupted their family lives, it has disrupted their domestic arrangements, it has disrupted much of what the rest of us take for granted. They don’t get the chance to say, ‘No! I am not coming’. . . .This largest chunk of just over $10 million is required to make sure that we are able to satisfy our financial obligations to the members of the service in terms of overtime, allowances and their other requirements.”
The supplementary funding package for the BPS included over $1 million for petroleum products and the purchase of spare parts for vehicles; $204,000 to augment the payment of travel allowance; an additional $500,000 for personal protective equipment (PPE), hand sanitisers and other cleaning supplies and to maintain service animals like dogs and horses.
“It is a significant amount of money that we are asking for by way of supplementary, but none of it Sir is to be taken as any reflection of any poor management on the part of the service. We have managed every cent carefully but the fact is, circumstances have prevailed which have required us to force officers to work extra duties and things of that sort and therefore, we must now ensure that their reasonable requests in terms of money for remuneration is available to them,” Marshall said. (KC)
