The signing of an agreement to regulate the legal status and salary scales of police officers reported on in today’s paper is obviously good news. Some might want to suspect politics could be involved, as the election campaign is in full swing, but these matters have been pending for years with various Ministers working on them.
Intriguing was the second document calling on the next Justice Minister taking office after
the upcoming September 26 parliamentary elections to comply with the agreed-on stipulations. The latter can be considered rather unusual and the advisory body on civil servant affairs GOA understandably was not a signatory in that case.
Nevertheless, the message of the labour unions involved to all political parties and individual candidates on the September 26 ballot is loud and clear: Don’t mess with this achievement.
Of course, there are likely to be financial consequences that can have an impact on efforts to keep the country’s budget balanced. It’s safe to assume that pay-raises rather than -cuts will be the result. Moreover, the NAPB representative spoke of many issues with back-pay.
However, the reality is that law enforcement officials have been waiting for what they were promised since 10-10-10. The expectations created then are finally being met and – certainly at this point – that’s the only right thing to do.
