AT least 60 employees of the State-owned Port Management Security Limited (PMSL) will be out of jobs come July 1 when the almost-19-year-old entity is shuttered.

In a June 5 letter to the PMSL employees, The Port Authority of Jamaica confirmed that their posts will be made redundant on June 30 based on a decision by the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service that the non-intrusive inspection programme carried out by employees of PMSL should be returned to the Jamaica Customs Agency.

“Over the coming days and weeks we will be issuing further notices and arranging a series of meetings/seminars to provide all the necessary information for the efficient implementation of this [redundancy] exercise,” The Port Authority said in its letter.

With their redundancy date fast approaching outspoken members of the PMSL staff on Wednesday appealed to Prime Minister Andrew Holness to intervene and help them keep their jobs.

“We believe the PM and the Ministry of Finance and Public Service have ignored us. We just want him to come out and say what is his position on it. We don’t have any jobs come July 1. That alone tells you how it will affect us. Without a job, how am I going to pay my mortgage? The bank doesn’t play with that. You know what they will do. I pay $80,000 for mortgage,” one of the worried employees told the Jamaica Observer.

“We were promised by Professor Gordon Shirley, the head of The Port Authority of Jamaica, that he would have made representation for us. He came back and said it had to be sanctioned by Parliament, which means to us that he didn’t do anything. He did nothing for us,” the employee added.

Another employee, who has been with PMSL for more than 15 years, said everything has been put on hold in his personal life and the life of his colleagues.

“We cannot buy anything. My wife and I cannot do anything. Everything has to cut back, even the groceries because you don’t know what is going to happen come July 1. I can’t even carry out my wife to dinner because she says no, we can’t afford to spend extra money.

“You are telling me that since the May 4 meeting we had with Professor Gordon Shirley there is no good news from anybody? Yesterday, while at work, my blood pressure went up. When I went to the doctor she said I cannot allow the present situation to stress me out and the same anxiety is stretched across the board. Come July, the mortgage still has to be paid. We are asking the prime minister to intervene, sit down and talk to us. Is it that we have to go out there and use expletives or ask for a donkey before we can get some attention?” added the employee.

Some of the disgruntled workers, who claim they are loyal supporters of Holness, have threatened to vote in support of the People’s National Party come the next general election if they are left stranded by the redundancy exercise.

“He [Holness] doesn’t seem to care. I don’t really want to bring in politics, but as a Labourite [a supporter of the governing Jamaica Labour Party (JLP)], I can never vote for them again. Me vote JLP straight and it hard fi know seh di man kick me out of me job and den me still a go vote fi him.

“We even wrote to the Ministry of Finance asking for a meeting and they ignored us. I believe it is a disrespect for them to not even come out and acknowledge that we make up a special group based on our skillet. It is a disgrace to throw us out like this,” said the PMSL employee who asked not to be named.

PMSL was formed in 2005 and assigned to The Port Authority of Jamaica to operate. It was tasked with intercepting illegal arms, drugs, and other contraband, moving through the island’s ports.

The workers, mainly people with military and police background, foresee big problems in the near future if they are removed from the nation’s security apparatus.

One worker told the Observer that he has received word that the Jamaica Customs Agency has already started to recruit new people to carry out the jobs of the PMSL staff and he is concerned that these new workers will lack the requisite knowledge and skills to find contraband at the ports.

“So what does that mean as far as security is concerned? Our security system, as far as the importation of drugs, guns and ammunition, will take a hit as a result. We were hoping something would have been worked out based on our experience and skills. I am talking about people who have worked for the company for 18 years. It is real and shocking. It will affect our lifestyle because we are persons with children going to school just the same, so it will have a serious impact on our welfare,” said the PMSL staffer.

“The fact that the Government has not even responded, it shows that he [Holness] doesn’t really put people first. Jamaica owns Port Authority and Customs, so I am interested in finding out why they made the decision they made. Our work, experiences and national security don’t seem to mean anything.

“Based on the current situation they have not said or done anything. The fact that the information is out there in the public domain they should have seen it and they did nothing,” the worker said as he pointed out that many of his colleagues “have children going to high school and universities as well as loans like car loans and they have mortgage”.

According to the disgruntled PMSL employees, in the past five years, they have found more than 3,000 firearms at the ports as well as more than 10,000 rounds of ammunition, and illegal drugs. They said that the Customs department and the police always get the praise for their work.

“We have been praised many times by the United States Government for our integrity and honesty. When we just got our scanning equipment over 18 years ago, they were top of the line but there are a lot of geniuses out there and they study us. Some of these detectors are outdated and it is just because of our skills over the years why we are still detecting contraband,” said one employee.

The workers charged that it is beyond unfair to kick them to the kerb, ignoring the value of the services they provide.

For many weeks the Observer has made numerous attempts to get comments from officials of The Port Authority of Jamaica on the pending closure of PMSL without success.