“REGULAR police officers throughout the country have been given an increase in their salaries even though they are not working hard enough to help protect and serve the country.

“Some of them do absolutely nothing.

“However, Special Reserve Police (SRP) officers who do 10 times more work have not been given a salary increase.”

This is the contention of a senior SRP officer who spoke with TnT Mirror.

He explained that SRP constables get $3,471 per month before taxes, while regular junior police officers receive approximately $5,000 before deductions.

The SRP officer said they were tired of waiting for their own salary increases and that complaining to the secretary of the Police Second Division Welfare Association Noel Chase was a waste of time, since he was always promising them “a raise within the next month”, which never materialises.

“It is over a year now we have been promised a raise, but our salaries have remained the same,” said the SRP spokesman.

He insisted that SRPs work the same number of hours as regular police officers “and sometimes even harder.

“Most of the time we are outside doing their work for them while they are inside sitting down wasting taxpayers’ money,” he slammed.

“And while regular police officers are paid overtime, SRPs are not paid any sort of extra allowance, but instead must apply for time of in lieu of additional hours worked.”

He added: “A couple of months ago, we put out an advertisement in the print media calling on the authorities to pay SRPs all outstanding monies due, but we were still ignored.”

However, Chase told Mirror one the issues with SRPs was that they were categorised into three sections.

He said the last set of SRPs was hired on a contract basis and another category in 2003 was under caption “1,000 strong”.

“The reason for the latter was that 1,000 SRPs were supposed to be let into the Service, but the number was stopped at 489,” he revealed.

“The next set of 79 SRPs was taken on as drivers and the government later made a decision to absorb them into the regular Service.”

He said his understanding is that a new government contract for the SRPs, dealing with salary increases and other allowances is still in draft form.

Chase also said it was a usual practice that when regular police officers got a salary increase that SRPs also get one as well.

“Some SRPs also have their matters before the court because they said they are being treated unfairly,” he noted.

When asked if he felt that SRPs worked harder than regular police, Chase retorted: “How would you measure that?

“I think they are just saying that for argument sake.”

He added: “From a legal perspective, SRPs are not required to have the same educational requirements as that demanded of police officers before they join the Service.

“Police officers must have at least three Ordinary level passes and have to train for six months, while SRPs only train for six weeks and the three O’Level passes are not mandatory.

“Our job specs are also different.

“I am not saying that SRPs aren’t in the frontline but it is different.”