Police retirees want their backpay

While he welcomed news that most of the currently serving officers will get their backpay by monthend, as promised by Acting Commissioner of Police (CoP) Stephen Williams, to Parliament’s Public Administration and Appropriations Committee (PAAC) last Wednesday, he said this settlement did not include retirees.

He wondered if Williams was aware of the plight of the retirees, who he said numbered 1,200 to 1,400.

The source claimed that some $60 million had been allocated to pay the retirees their pensions and gratuity for the years 2011 to 2014, but was never paid.

He alleged that within the Police Service a decision was taken to first handle the payments of backpay before paying out pension and gratuity, and as a result the $60 million in pension and gratuity allocation was meanwhile returned to the Treasury, not given to the retirees.

Further, he said the processing of backpay has been complicated by the need to calculate yearly wage-increment s , further complicated by the fact that lists and lists of names of retirees have discrepancies of overpayment or underpayment.

“Only one person in the Increments Department is seeing about this,” he lamented. He hopes Williams would allocate more staff.