Dear Editor,

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

The current impasse between the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service 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 its best to save the economic programme from veering off course, as happened in the last Jamaica Labour Party Administration, and the police federation seems hell-bent on doing just that.

We know what happened after Audley Shaw caved to the unjust demands of the public sector groups back then. We have 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; forcing increases that the country cannot afford. That is one reason 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 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 federation is behaving like a 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 in which its growth and development is imperilled and the hard-earned gains of the past are reversed.

The police are important to this country, but in my view they are not that important enough to warrant destroying the economic progress of this country. Just as teachers, doctors, nurses, etc, 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.

Successive police federation leaders seem only interested in one thing. It’s like a race to see which leader of that grouping can extract more from the State. The current head, who comes across as an overprivileged, angry lady, seems destined to prove a point to her male peers. The thing she needs to understand is that this is not the wild west. This is a civilised country.

We need the police, yes, but they are not worth plunging back this country 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.

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

Fabian Lewis

tyronelewis272@gmail.com