When was Floyd McDonald appointed at Home Affairs and what’s his official position there?

Nov 27, 2009 Letters

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Dear Editor,
On Sunday, November 22, the Home Affairs Ministry released a statement informing the nation that an agreement was reached between Guyana and Venezuela to strengthen cooperation in combating the drug trade.
The agreement was reached after a delegation from Guyana, comprising former acting Police Commissioner, Mr. Floyd McDonald, Assistant Police Commissioner, CID, Mr. Seelall Persaud, and CANU Head, Mr. James Singh, traveled to Venezuela for a two-day meeting on November 4 and 5. The reason for this agreement, I understand, relates to the fact that most of the cocaine transiting Guyana is believed to come from Venezuela via its porous border with Guyana.
First, since most of the cocaine transiting Guyana comes from Venezuela by boats, and Venezuela has a bigger army than Guyana and has just spent billions on new war planes and other hardware, why isn’t Venezuela doing more to protect its borders from being abused by drug smugglers? Is it that the Venezuelan government does not see the drug problem the way the US, Canada, Britain and other European countries do? At least the impression I have gotten in the last decade from the Guyana Government is that the drug problem is not so much a Guyana problem as it is a foreign problem, and that likely explains why so many drug smugglers flourished and became money laundering businessmen who helped keep the Guyana economy afloat. Unless I can see some tangible results, I think this Guyana-Venezuela drug fighting meeting as just another political farce that lacks practical force needed to deal with this scourge.
Second, I find it rather strange that a meeting of that nature took place on November 4 and 5 but the Guyanese public was only apprised of it on November 22 via a release. Was there any special reason for keeping the holding of the meeting under wraps for 17 days?
Third, I am curious to know why the government could have seen it fit to send CANU’s Head, Mr. Singh, to the Venezuela meeting but executed a last-minute cancellation of Mr. Singh’s attendance of a US-sponsored drug confab several months ago in one of the smaller West Indian islands. Does government see a greater benefit in working with Venezuela than the US in fighting drug smuggling?
Fourth, I noted the release stated that Mr. McDonald represented the Home Affairs Ministry, but it never stated in what capacity. Does Kaieteur News know what substantive position Mr. McDonald holds at the Home Affairs Ministry and when he was appointed to that position? (I have asked the same about the appointment of Dr. Randy Persaud to some government post most of us know nothing about).
I recall that one of the fall outs from the Roger Khan Phantom Squad scandal was the fact that Khan said he used police officers on the force’s active payroll to help fight dangerous gunmen, and since Mr. McDonald had his retirement date postponed for about a year during which time Khan’s Phantom Squad flourished, one has to wonder if Mr. McDonald would not be a person of interest in any future probe into Khan’s Phantom Squad operations.
How Khan could have used officers on active payroll and the acting top cop never knew about this arrangement is a mystery. In fact, some are wondering whether the acting top cop’s retirement was deliberately postponed to facilitate Khan’s Phantom Squad operations, and the only way to really know this is to have him deposed in a probe.
Mr. McDonald’s name also surfaced in the case of Axel Williams who received an upgrade for an automatic gun despite serious accusations swirling around him, and as we all know, Williams, who was gunned down in a mysterious ambush in Bel Air Park after dropping off someone, was allegedly named as part of the Phantom Squad operations.
Williams was actually accused of gunning down a food cart vendor after the vendor demanded payment for food Williams ordered and ate but refused to pay for.
That case, like so many other murder cases in Guyana, was thrown into the cold case freezer, but it was the dotted line relationship that Williams supposedly had with Mr. McDonald that placed the former acting top cop in a shadowy position of being seen as a player in the entire Phantom Squad operations.
Right after the late George Bacchus blew the cover on the Phantom Squad operations and a government launched probe exonerated former Home Affairs Minister Ronald Gajraj of a relationship with Williams, both Messrs. Gajraj and McDonald stepped down from their respective jobs. Both also had their visas to the US revoked. Mr. Gajraj took up a new appointment as Guyana’s new High Commissioner to India while news reports circulated that Mr. McDonald was likely to take up a post-retirement job with the Home Affairs Ministry.
The latter never happened immediately and the only mention of him taking up a job was when he was named to the board at the New Building Society. So, when exactly was Mr. McDonald appointed to the Home Affairs Ministry and in what capacity?
I am fully in favour of any and all efforts to deal with the drug scourge, because of both the direct effect it has on users and the lethal combination of drugs-guns in society and even in the corridors of political power in some countries.
But how can genuinely concerned Guyanese believe this government is serious about fighting the drug scourge when it names Mr. McDonald to a delegation to discuss the drug trade taking place across the Guyana-Venezuela border, yet Mr. McDonald’s role still needs to be explained in the Phantom Squad operations that were financed by Roger Khan’s drug money.
Now that Khan has pled guilty in a US court to trafficking in drugs from Guyana to the US, it is fair to ask how Mr. McDonald could not know about said drug operations. Did Mr. McDonald collaborate with Khan?
Though I have focused extensively here on Mr. McDonald, it is not merely about Mr. McDonald, but about the many innocent people who died at the hands of Khan’s Phantom Squad operatives who deserve to have both justice and closure for their surviving relatives.
And because Mr. McDonald may hold a piece of the puzzle that needs to be completed so we can have a full picture of the circumstances surrounding the deaths of so many, his appointment to any public position should be openly addressed. But especially an appointment that brings him into contact with anything related to drugs.
Maybe government thinks that because many Guyanese have not publicly railed against the promotion of Merai to a senior position in the police force that the questionable roles of certain police officers in recent times have been forgotten, but these are the kinds of double standard that encourage ongoing criminality in society and among the Joint Services and a lack of public support for government’s crime and drug fighting initiatives.
Emile Mervin

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