Wage Discussion between Prime Minister and Police Federation Positive – Whiteman

Information Minister, Senator Burchell Whiteman has said that wage discussions held yesterday (October 10), between Prime Minister P.J. Patterson and representatives from the Police Federation were, “fruitful and positive”.
Mr. Whiteman, who was speaking to journalists on October 10 at the weekly post-Cabinet press briefing at Jamaica House, said the Prime Minister met with the representatives after negotiations with the Finance Ministry and the police did not bring about a resolution that was satisfactory to either party. “I believe the meeting with the Prime Minister was a constructive and a positive one and we expect a positive outcome”, the Minister said.
He said the negotiation process was expected to continue, and when a definitive decision was arrived at, “the appropriate Minister or the Federation will speak at the appropriate time, based on the completion of the process”.
Turning to other matters that were discussed by the Cabinet, Minister Whiteman informed journalists that the issue of the country’s unacceptable crime rate was discussed at length, following the adjournment of the meeting.
“We discussed the kinds of phenomena that we are seeing in the country, in the society and the behaviour, some of it inexplicable, not fully understood.why these things are happening and we talked about some possibilities in that regard and looked at some of the strategies, which have been tried and others that need to be tried,” the Minister said.
The informal discussion, he said, served as preparation for examining a National Security Report that was presented to Cabinet this week. Deliberations on the document will resume at the next sitting of Cabinet, with the intention of arriving at a consensus by the following week.