ATTORNEY GENERAL Adriel BRAthwaite has ordered that temporary prison officers who have not been paid for several months get their money before Christmas.
Prison officers have been griping about not receiving monies owed to them some say from as far back as September 2009.
“I saw the Superintendent of Prisons last Friday,” Brathwaite said, “and I told him that the problem was two-way: the prison failing to submit the paper work on time and the payroll office. I told him that the officers must receive some money before Christmas”.
But Brathwaite also pointed out that the situation was not peculiar to the temporary officers at the prison and it had to do with Government’s Smartstream accounting system.
This situation is not new, and seems to be a recurring problem.
But this time, frustrated officers took their complaint to the Congress of Trade Unions and Staff Associations of Barbados (CTUSAB).
An angry warder told the SUNDAY SUN officers had been calling the accounts department at the prison and the office of the Chief Personnel Officer almost daily “but all we are being told is that it is being worked on”. The officer said the money also included payment for flexitime which they have not received since June.
“Some of us would get money in February, but still [were] owedfor January, and it has been going on like that for a long time. People have been wondering what is the sense of working when they are not getting paid. We had an officer here who was so embarrassed because bailiffs turned up at the [Dodds] Prison for him. We have our families to feed and bills to pay and this is unfair,” he said.
The officer said an audit was being conducted at the prison and they were being told that no money would be paid until all of the books were checked.
A CTUSAB official, who asked for anonymity, said some warders contacted the Congress and pleaded for assistance.
“We had a meeting with the Minister of Labour Dr Esther Byer-Suckoo and another Government official and we told them that this situation was unacceptable. We drew it to their attention that this was an issue of national security – we cannot have prison officers working in the prison and not being paid. That could lead to other scenarios.”
The official said Byer-Suckoo promised to look into the matter and have it resolved.
He stated that CTUSAB was giving Government time to rectify the matter before taking any further steps.
