Outstanding payments coming for police officers

Off duty police officers who worked during the January General Election period this year, should finally receive their pay later this month.          

Chief Electoral Officer Angela Taylor and president of the Police Association of Barbados Mervyn Grace confirmed on Tuesday that the delay in payment had been resolved and the lawmen should see the money with their salaries.

“That was the intention of the Assistant Commissioner when I spoke to him, to have it pushed so that they could have it as soon as possible. So they should all be happy now, at least for that particular aspect of money…There are others we are working on, so we are happy,” Grace declared while declining to elaborate on the other outstanding issues at this stage.

“They have resolved the issue and the police accounts department is working overtime to load the money onto persons’ accounts so that it will come out on their salary at payday,” the Chief Electoral Officer told Barbados TODAY.

She said the monies for the various groups of people who worked during the election process had been released to their departments’ accounts before the end of the 2021-2022 financial in March.   

“The same system was done for printery staff who worked overtime in printing the ballots and so on and also for the Post Office staff who carried out the election circulars. The money went from the EBC account to theirs. Everybody got paid,” Taylor stated.                                      

Meanwhile, the Police Association president revealed that his members had not yet received all of the allowances owed them by the Government. He explained that the officers were slowly beginning to receive the money.                                                                                 

This was 11 years after former Attorney General Adriel Brathwaite signed an order approving the payment of various allowances for members of the Barbados Police Service (BPS). The money for the allowances, more than $20.9 million, was provided for in the 2010-2011 Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure, and included payment for detectives, plainclothes officers, washing, travel, flexible responsibility, subsistence, duty allowance and special operations. (EJ)