<B>By Deepa BHOOKHUN</B>

So the Prime minister thinks that prison officers are moaning about the commissioner of prisons because they simply like to moan. No I?m sorry, it?s not quite what he said in Parliament the day he replied to a Private Notice Question on the prisons; no, Navin Ramgoolam said that prison officers? frustrations were due to the fact that the CP was waging a war against the mafia ? understand by this that this mafia is mainly made up of black sheep wearing the prison officer uniform ? and that it is because their Mafiosi activities are being thwarted, that prison officers are being awkward. I don?t know if the PM has any idea how the overwhelming majority of prison officers who are law-abiding citizens and who put their lives on the line day in day out by doing this thankless job, received this statement.He probably doesn?t.

And I?m ready to bet almost anything that nobody will relay the information that by dismissing so easily prison officers? problems ? clearly believing what the CP has told him ? the Prime minister sent a very unsettling message to prison officers.

So I?ll volunteer the information if nobody else will.

I personally received numerous phone calls from members of the Prison Service after Tuesday?s PNQ session. Most of them were incensed and some of them made gratuitous remarks but all of them spoke of a sense of discouragement, of feeling let down.

The most moving phone call came from a prison officer who has been in service for over thirty years. ?I do this job because I enjoy it. Or enjoyed rather. Now I go to work with fear in my heart. I am not afraid of detainees ? you don?t fear them after having lived and worked with them for most of your life. What I fear is that I might be made to bear the blame for decisions made by my superiors. When those decisions turn out to be bad decisions ? as they often do these days ? no ?senior? officer will own up to them and bear the brunt of that ill-advised decision. No, nowadays it?s always the officers on the middle rung of the hierarchy who are sacrificed so the CP can pretend he is doing a great job whenever the PMO asks for explanations.?

I didn?t know what to say to that so I simply told him to have faith. Faith in what I asked myself as I put the phone down. I don?t know.

All I know is that it is the CP, who personally went to Phoenix to check whether the prison was ready to be reopened, who took that ill-advised decision to open up the high security prison.

Despite warnings from his officers that it wasn?t such a good idea. Do you know what you get for warning your boss against security risks?

An interdiction. Interdictions are distributed very generously at Beau-Bassin these days. And much too often, to people whose only sin were to follow orders. But great job, says the PM.

He?s about the only one who believes this.