The Tribune

By KHRISNA VIRGIL

Tribune Staff Reporter

kvirgil@tribunemedia.net

OUTSTANDING pay owed to hundreds of police reservists over several months is on the way, National Security Minister Dr Bernard Nottage confirmed yesterday in Parliament.

Dr Nottage said a problem with the government’s system of disbursement was to blame for the late payment. However, he told MPs that in speaking to State Finance Minister Michael Halkitis he was assured that the officers’ pay was in the process of approval.

He said officials were looking at how to improve its payout system with a view to avoiding the same problem in the future. Earlier this week, Dr Nottage told The Tribune that he was unsure whether around 500 reservists had gone unpaid.

Dwight Smith, the Police Staff Association chairman, raised the issue on Sunday saying that the officers were threatening to stop work if they did not receive reimbursement. Mr Smith sided with the reservists because he said they were an important part of police work and suggested that great implications were to be expected if the officers refused to work.

FNM Chairman Darron Cash expressed disappointment that the Christie administration failed to prioritise the pay of the police reservists among its lengthy list of ongoing initiatives.

He said: “While the Treasury might be ‘broke’ for reservists who join with the other police officers and put their lives on the line every day to protect Bahamian people, it is clearly not broke for PLP parliamentarians who think they deserve a salary increase and whose only job risk is danger of getting hit by cars as they cross Parliament Street to get to the House of Assembly. Something seems ethically and morally with that picture. The government’s priorities seem to be totally messed up. This attitude is so much like the ‘all for me baby’ attitude of the PLP minister of old.”