Police Protest Low Wages, Corruption in Gafsa

The police union of Gafsa gathered in front of police headquarters today in protest of pitiful night shift wages and financial corruption within the police administration.

The standard wage for police working the night shift in Tunisia is 100 Tunisian Millimes, or just 7 US cents an hour.

The protestors wished to send a “warning message” to the ministry of the interior, reminding the authority of its promises made nine months ago concerning the improvement of that wage to 3 Dinars or a little over 2 US Dollars an hour.

“We have been only getting promises but nothing has been put into practice so far,” said Ali Soltani, the general secretary of the police union.

The union also claimed that the police administration still suffers from financial and structural corruption and that any positive change would be incomplete in such an “unclean” environment.

Responding to these allegations, the director of the national police forces in Gafsa, Salem Jimni, told Mosaique FM that he would not take into consideration any corruption accusations unless they were proven with palpable evidence.

He also said, concerning the night shift salary, “We have not forsaken our promises, on the contrary the treasury has already recorded their extra working hours but the procedure takes time as we need to check all bank account references to avoid huge administrative mistakes.”

By all accounts, the historic elections in Tunisia on October 23rd went well in large part because both the police and the army deployed appreciable efforts in maintaining order during the pre-election period and, particularly, on the day itself. Officers were thus dismayed to discover that they did not receive any food allowance for that day of work.

Soltani stated, “20, 000 TD is the budget that was supposed to finance the police officers’ meals on October 23. Not a single officer in Gafsa benefited from it. We were not even provided with any emergency allowance. We expected at least a material reward when the elections went as planned.”

Concerning this money, Salem Jimni responded, “That budget was not dedicated to the police force in the first place, it was supposed to cover the army’s needs; there was an agreement to give part of it to the police forces once the army’s spending was fully covered.”

Jimni asserted that he does consider the union’s demands legitimate and that he will do his best to deal with them cautiously.

“The protestors should be sure that we will live up to their expectations and that all their rights will be eventually fulfilled,” he said.