The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

THE government should pay off-duty police officers to patrol events like Bahamas Junkanoo Carnival, Police Staff Association Chairman Inspector Dwight Smith said yesterday.

Officers on duty when such events happen are usually used to police those events.

But, citing precedents in countries like Trinidad, Insp Smith said it is time for events like carnival to be considered private, where off-duty police officers are contracted and paid for their services.

The failure to let this happen, he said, suggests that the government doesn’t have police officers in mind when it talks about using events like carnival to stimulate the economy.

“If events like this are supposed to be a stimulus to the economy, then these people should have a chance to experience a boost,” he told The Tribune. “If we say we are going to give $9 million to carnival, we should say we will set aside $500,000 for security personnel. The same principle should apply to Junkanoo and other events.

“What is a private event? As far as the association is concerned, if you have to pay to go to an event then that event becomes a private event. It cannot be a public event.”

Insp Smith said his association was once responsible for managing the way in which police officers are hired to police private events.

However, that responsibility was revoked by Police Commissioner Ellison Greenslade after the PSA won a significant court case seeking overtime pay last year, he said.

“We’ve been doing this for quite some time,” he said. “At one point the association ran the affairs of private events. Officers would come in and we would select people to work the event. We’re the experts at private engagement events. But after recent events, namely the ruling on overtime, that has been taken away from us.”

While seeking to have that responsibility returned to the PSA, Insp Smith said he is also trying to convince officials to let police officers share in the economic boost that is promised from events like carnival.

The appeal process for the overtime case will be heard before the Court of Appeal this month, attorney Wayne Munroe told The Tribune yesterday.

In his ruling last July, Justice Milton Evans said it was illegal for police officers to work 12-hour shifts without being paid overtime.

It was estimated that the government would have to pay out $16.5 million to officers who worked overtime during particular periods in 2013 and 2014.