By Lamin Fatty
Members of the Gambia Fire and Rescue Services have continued to express total resentment and displeasure over what most of them described as indiscriminate and unfair deductions from their salaries. They questioned the deductions when they (junior officers) do not even have risk allowance considering the nature of their work.
The firemen could not fathom why anything for whatever reason should be deducted from their paltry pay package, which to them, is obviously nothing to make a song or dance about compared to the great risk involved in their job.
The Management of the fire and rescue services was alleged to have made deductions of D350 from the salaries of the officers which starts last month for possible overseas treatment. They are also deducting D100 since 2010 which the fire service authorities say was meant to recover Bus fares, CUG charges and the police canteen. The angry staff say such deductions are illegal since they are not benefitting from these schemes.
Some of the firemen said, the management went round the various stations informing them of the said D350 deductions which they flatly rejected. They however raised serious question claiming that they were not duly informed before the commencement of the deductions.
Following all these aforementioned issues, the PRO of fire and rescue services was on capital FM as a host to discuss the welfare of the firemen. Callers among them some firemen decried of the illegal deductions. The fire service authorities are leveraging on the fact that firemen cannot openly protest. The PRO was since removed and redeployed to Brikama fire service.
Speaking to me PRO Muhammed Drammeh confirmed his removal but did not know why he was removed. Meanwhile, unconfirmed reports intimated that, those firemen who took part in the talk show would be transferred to the provinces.
One of the firemen who spoke with this writer and wish to remain anonymous was visibly angry at the decision of the fire service authorities to arbitrarily deduct their salaries without their consent. He said; “Please tell them to return our money and stop any further deduction from our salaries. We are not interested in any possible overseas treatment. How can they forcefully deduct our money for an ulterior motive when we are not interested? Why should they continue to cut our pay that is not even enough to take us home? The chief fire officer should forget these deductions and work towards ensuring an improved salary package for us. Of all the security agencies in the country, firemen are the least paid.”
At the time of putting these reports together, group of firemen surrounded me to express dissatisfaction over these deductions which they described as unrealistic. They cited various instances where there colleagues either died or incapacitated in active service.
One fire officer told me that their colleague Corporal Ansumana Drammeh was shot following the land dispute in the border village of Jahanka. He is since languishing in hospital with no overseas treatment. Where is the justification for the overseas treatment, queried the fire officers. They also cited another incident where another colleague Lamin S Bah was knocked down by the car whiles mounting a checkpoint near Gambia College. In both cases according to fire officers, they have not received any support from the fire service management. They lamented the risks involved in their work and cited an incident during which one of their colleagues died in an inferno at Kanifing.
At the time of going to press, there was no response from the management to the outcry of the firemen.
