Ricardo under fire
from prison guards
POINTE BLANCHE--Now that prison director Rudsel Ricardo is out, it’s better to keep him out. That’s the sentiment of a large group of prison guards at the Pointe Blanche prison.
Several prison guards have approached The Daily Herald in recent days accusing Ricardo of bad management. Now that the prison director has gone on vacation, they are advocating that he shouldn’t be allowed to return.
This feeling will also set the tone for discussions with Justice Minister David Dick who will visit St. Maarten again this week.
The list of complaints by the prison guards includes decisions Ricardo has taken in the past to promote certain prison guards while jeopardising the security of guards with more years of service. They also complained about certain prison guards being promoted while there were no vacancies for the functions to which they had been promoted.
They are also up in arms because a certain prison guard was promoted twice within a short period of time while, in their view, the guard lacked the schooling to do the work he was promoted to do.
Another major issue was linked to a US $10,000 cheque they claimed had been cashed fraudulently by a prison employee. They accused Ricardo of trying to keep the issue quiet, instead of taking strong measures against the employee.
They said that when a high ranking prison guard had complained to Ricardo about the way he had dealt with the issue, the guard had been suspended from work and prohibited from entering the prison grounds.
The prison guards accused Ricardo of having allowed Police Commissioner Marcel Loor to speak with former prosecutor Cor Merx on two occasions when the latter was in pre-trial detention in 2005. They said that when Loor had visited Ricardo in his office, Ricardo had called Merx to his office so that Loor and Merx could meet.
They also want the human resource assistant at the prison replaced because, in their view, too many things had gone wrong at the prison in recent years.
The prison guards referred to the Camelia-Römer Report in which it was stated that the prison management in St. Maarten was inept and was squandering money.
Windward Islands Civil Servants Union (WICSU) President William Reed told The Daily Herald that several of the issues about which the prison guards had complained were being discussed with Justice Minister David Dick. “We are working on rectifying all that went wrong and had negative consequences for the legal positions of the prison guards,” Reed said.
He explained that Rudsel Martis of the Central Government Personnel Department had already indicated that promotions had taken place based on unofficial grounds. “The problem is that people with years of service were surpassed in rank by younger workers. This has to be rectified.”
Whether Ricardo should stay or go, Reed said, is something on which he cannot comment at the moment, as talks with the Minister are still ongoing.
Regarding what had happened with Merx and Loor in 2005, Reed said he had heard the rumours, but could not confirm them. He wasn’t working at the Pointe Blanche prison at that time and didn’t know for a fact whether it had really happened.
General civil servants union ABVO representative Randall Salome preferred not to go into any details, stating that Dick was coming to St. Maarten and that he would take whatever measures were necessary. He stressed, however, that if measures were taken, they should apply to all.
