SVG’s police welfare chief loses job over vaccine mandate

Head of the Police Welfare Association in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Station Sergeant Brenton Smith was informed today that he was deemed to have resigned his job as a police officer.

Smith, who has been a police officer for 27 years, did not comply with the government’s mandate that police officers, and a wide cross-section of public sector workers, deemed “frontline employees”, vaccinate against a COVID-19 if they are to continue in their jobs.

He, however, told iWitness News that he does not consider himself as having resigned and would challenge the government’s decision.

“I have been fired,” Smith told iWitness News in a telephone interview.

He told iWitness News that the letter informing him of the government’s decision was hand delivered by a sergeant of police.

The Dec. 8 letter, signed by the Chief Personnel Officer, Arlene RegisfordSam, was copied to the permanent secretary in the Ministry of National Security, the Commissioner of Police, the Director General — Finance, the Accountant General, the Director of Audit, and the Comptroller, Inland Revenue Department.

“I have to inform you that the Police Service Commission has noted that you, without reasonable excuse, failed to comply with Rule 5 of the Public Health (Public Bodies Special Measures) Rules 2021,” Regisford-Sam’s letter said.