ROSE HALL, St James — Police Commissioner Dr Kevin Blake has promised rank and file members of the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) that he is moving swiftly to procure bulletproof vests from this year’s $1.6-billion budget available for uniforms. He also promised that new uniforms, which will replace the existing red-seam type, will be available within the next four months, at the latest.

“We shouldn’t be coming here and persons asking for bulletproof vests. It shouldn’t be. That’s a requirement. That’s our responsibility. We need to do that. But we have a budget for this year — $1.6 billion for uniform, and that includes 5,000 bulletproof vests,” he said in his address to the Jamaica Police Federation’s 81st Annual Conference at Hilton Rose Hall Resort in Montego Bay on Tuesday.

The commissioner also noted that while nearly 40,000 uniforms have been distributed to members of the JCF over the past three years, that was still not enough and so efforts are being made to address the demand.

“We knew that 40,000 wouldn’t satisfy everyone. It’s a large organisation, and so even with 40,000 being procured we still will have persons who have not yet received uniforms so the shortage is still there,” he conceded.

“But I hope this can comfort you, that even whilst the resources are not forthcoming yet, we are committed to remove the friction, to fix our procurement, fix our finance, fix whatever, fix our logistics so that we can move faster,” he added.

Dr Blake explained that one reason for the lag is that suppliers cannot keep pace with the demand.

“Our uptake is much faster than the manufacturers can produce — and it’s not a budget issue. Each year we allocate the budget based on the number that we have, so they are producing it now,” he explained.

He said that another factor is the challenge in getting the new uniforms manufactured.

“There’s another type of uniform with the top being high-visibility; that is ideally what is supposed to replace the red-seam [version]. We had a little challenge getting those manufactured. They are being manufactured now, and those will be ready in the next 12 to 14 weeks,” Dr Blake told rank and file cops.

“We start off with places like PSTEB [Public Safety and Traffic Enforcement Branch] and those formations up front. One of our challenges that we have is that we don’t communicate well as an organisation,” said the commissioner.