Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties, Bar­ry Padarath, met with Deryck Richard­son, Pres­i­dent of the Es­tate Po­lice As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (EPA), to ad­dress is­sues raised by the EPA on be­half of its mem­bers.

The EPA out­lined un­re­solved mat­ters in­clud­ing non-pay­ment of salaries and de­duc­tions, wage ne­go­ti­a­tions, pay­ment of statu­to­ry de­duc­tions to fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions, gra­tu­ity pay­ments for re­tirees, stan­dards for the im­por­ta­tion of bul­let­proof vests, and amend­ments to leg­is­la­tion.

The As­so­ci­a­tion stat­ed that these mat­ters had re­mained un­ad­dressed by the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion, which it said had not pri­ori­tised the wel­fare of the or­gan­i­sa­tion or its per­son­nel. The EPA re­port­ed that with­in the first 100 days of the new ad­min­is­tra­tion, it had ex­pe­ri­enced more en­gage­ment than in the past decade com­bined.