Dear Editor,

“An appeaser is someone who feeds a crocodile hoping it will eat him last.” — Winston Churchill.

The current impasse between the Ministry of Finance and the public sector once again draws into focus the need for Government to stop the policy of appeasement of public sector groups. From all indications the Ministry of Finance is trying it’s best to save the economic programme from veering off course as happen in the last Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) administration and the police federation is hell-bent and doing just that.

We know what happened after Audley Shaw caved to the unjust demands of the public sector groups back then. We had to suffer hardship beyond belief to keep this country going. We must never forget why that programme crashed. It was the unreasonable demands of the public sector including the Police Federation. We must never go back there.

The Police Federation has behaved for decades like extortionist. Extorting increases that the country cannot afford. That is one reason why the public debt ballooned under the People’s National Party to levels that choked the life out of the country.

The Police Federation has used the high crime rate for decades to justify their legalised extortion from the State, always complaining that they work harder than everybody else and thus should be given special treatment. That’s rubbish!

The police work no harder than our teachers and nurses. The police have exploited the crime situation, milking it for all it’s worth without a thought for whether or not the country can afford it. The Police Federation is behaving like some spoilt child trying to force his/her parent to get a toy that is unaffordable.

The Government must stay its course and not let the Police Federation force this country into a position where its growth and development is imperiled and the hard earn gains of the past are reversed.

The police are important to this country, but in my view are not that important to warrant destroying the economic progress of the country. Just like how teachers, doctors and nurses et al have to live within their means, so should the police.

As a matter of fact I place much more faith in the army than the police. At least they don’t have death squads killing innocent people.

One of the silliest things about the Federation is that its sole purpose seems to be extorting the taxpayers of this country. All of their leaders seem only interested in that one thing. It’s like a race to see which leader of that group can extort more from the State.

The current head, who comes across as an over privileged, angry lady, seems inclined to prove a point to her male peers that she is the roughest and the toughest of them all. The thing she needs to understand is that this is not the Wild West. This is a civilized country.

We need the police yes, but they are not worth plunging this country back into the dark ages of the 1990s, which ironically, would create more criminals thereby increasing their workload. It seems it has escaped them that the only way they will have less to do is when we have high levels of growth, low levels of debt, and almost if not full employment. Their wage demands will jeopardise all of that. It’s like they are penny wise and US dollar foolish.

Dr Nigel Clarke must stick to his proverbial guns and not get extorted into destroying this country. Don’t follow the old failed policy of appeasement.

Fabian Lewis