Police officers who have been acting as corporals but not being compensated for the additional work will be paid from Feb. 1, Minister of National Security, St. Clair Leacock, announced on Monday.
Leacock, who attained the rank of major in the St. Vincent and the Grenadines Cadet Force and was a commandant of the Auxiliary Force, said it is a failure of the system if a police officer is still a constable after 25 years of service.
“Because if he is so poor in the delivery of his service, he should not be there for 25 years,” Leacock said.
“You ask him to resign in the interest of the people or, alternatively, if you are the one at fault because you don’t have performance measurement systems, you say mea culpa and promote the person,” Leacock said.
“You know what we have done so far?” he said, referring to the New Democratic Party administration, which came to office on Nov. 27.
“We have 112 corporals in the police force, some of them for eight years, a tradition has emerged in which people can act as a corporal for three years, four years, five years, sometimes even eight years before you get paid.”
He said this is “exploitation of people’s labour and service.
“We have made the decision that everyone must be paid their corporal’s pay, come the first of February. And if you don’t intend to pay a person for a job, don’t give them the job that goes with the work and the responsibility,” Leacock said.
“Once a person has gone through a reasonable probationary period of, say, six months in a job, you either keep them or return to where they were before.
“But once you keep them, pay them their monies. You can’t be telling a person because this is a particular type of organisation, then you must work Billy Button for two years and three or four years. No!” said Leacock, who is also a human resource management expert.