As reported on 27 April 2017, El Nacional says the same source said that the Police Department has an overall RD$3 billion debt that has made it impossible to fully apply the Police salary increases that President Danilo Medina had announced to the nation in his 27 February address.
According to Police insiders, the agents are unhappy that they are being overworked. The delay in the promised pay incentives has contributed to a sense of low morale among the officers. While in the past, the Police agents could go home for lunch, now they are on 12-hour shifts. The source told El Nacional that many times the agents are ordered to work using their police motorcycles, but are told to fill up the bikes using their own money.
“The situation is so critical that in some regions, such as is the casa of La Romana, where patrols are sent from San Pedro de Macorís, the agents are sent on a 12-hour shift but have to get there hitchhiking, and are not even given money for a meal or a bottle of water. This is shameful for the Police,” said the interviewed general.
He lamented that the regional directors are having to ask businesses to contribute money for fuel for their patrol vehicles.
Responding to the complaints, the spokesman for the Police General Nelson Rosario said “all is normal” in the Police Department. “It is not true that the police vehicles do not have fuel. All the units are patrolling normally and are refueling normally and without incident,” he said.
The source told El Nacional: “The Police Department has no money. We are facing a difficult situation. The paid scholarships in universities for police have been suspended because millions are owed to the schools, but no one says anything nor goes public in defense of the future professionals of the institution,” said the complaining general.
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El Nacional
28 April 2017
