LESS than 24 hours after unions representing members of the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) demanded that Government adjust niggling aspects of a proposed compensation package, the police on Friday morning were issued a fresh proposal to sign off on before time expired.

Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Wayne Cameron, chairman of the Police Officers’ Association (POA), confirmed to the Jamaica Observer on Friday afternoon that a new offer was placed on the table and that all the relevant parties on the police side were still perusing the document, therefore he could not comment on what decision would be taken.

He said that, after the document is reviewed, members of the POA would be called to a meeting to discuss the way forward.

Based on a WhatsApp message that was allegedly sent to SSP Cameron by Minister of Finance and Public Service Dr Nigel Clarke, the police had up to last night to come to a decision.

The minister, in the message to the POA boss, said efforts to have dialogue over a number of days in order to communicate and explain the urgency of the situation were unsuccessful. It further stated that the ministry found the SSPs’ unavailability for dialogue to be highly unfortunate under the circumstances, noting that the police were on “borrowed time” as the situation was a logistical reality that was beyond control.

Said Clarke: “What is important to me now is that you understand the logistical difficulties we face in organising and effecting payments for March. I have been reliably advised by my technical team that today [Friday] is the last working day for payment to be possible for March. We must begin implementation on Monday, with instructions for the voluminous individual calculations and quality control process to begin. The ministry has tried to get you all week to convey this. I’m resorting to this unusual means of sending a long message by WhatsApp because of the urgency. The technical teams are extremely worried and concerned about the ability to implement as we are already out of time. The process of calculating and effecting payments, in the context of restructured compensation arrangements, is overly complex. Many parts of government are involved. We risk errors by compressing the timeline but there comes a point where it becomes impossible to complete all the steps prior to end of month. That should be clear to you, I hope.”

On Tuesday, during the opening of the 2023/2024 Budget Debate in Parliament, Dr Clarke appealed to public sector groups, including the police, to sign the new compensation agreement before the March 31 window for this fiscal year closes. The minister said $10.2 billion had been set aside to pay rank-and-file members of the JCF, $1 billion to district constables, and $600 million for members of the officer ranks.

Leaders of the POA, the Jamaica Police Federation, and the United District Constables Association met on Thursday at Police Officers’ Club on Hope Road in St Andrew to give an update on wage negotiations. At that meeting, they insisted that they had not rejected the offer from the Government, but explained that adjustments needed to be made.

“Chief among the challenges we had with proposal was that the pay scales of inspectors and assistant superintendents were made at the same dollar figure and the points were the same. Senior superintendents and superintendents can never be paid at the same level, at no point at all. These issues we have pointed out repeatedly to the minister of finance. The commissioner of police was present at our last meeting on February 1, 2023. All of these and our other issues were highlighted again, and this was after we wrote on December 5 outlining our challenges. We formalised it and sent it to the minister and we came back to the February 1 meeting this year without those issues being addressed,” said SSP Cameron.