Police to have increase in pay

Due to personnel cuts.

Fyodar Baleika, the head of the main police department of Mahilou, said at a press conference on January 17 that a 25-30% cut in police staff is the only way to raise salaries of law enforcement officers, BelaPAN news agency reports.

“We cannot avoid cuts. We will adjust the number of the police staff. You see yourselves that crime declines. We don't have other ways to increase salaries except for redundancy,” the head of regional police thinks.

Baleika said the platoons to guard radioactively contaminated territories were already reduced by half.

He reminded about a meeting with the president in September 2012 to discuss reforms in the law enforcement agencies. He ordered the police to stop fulfilling other tasks beyond their direct duties.

“We have a lot of non-core functions. We must guard people to work, though it is a task of the employer. There are officers of court, but it is policemen who guard people to a court, if they don't want to appear there voluntary. We transport corpses. If it is a crime, an investigative team arrives and transports a dead body to a medical institution, but if it is natural death, it's not our duty to take corpses,” the head of the Mahilou region police said,

He noted that performing improper functions by the police hinders policemen to fulfil the duties set by the law on the internal affairs agencies.