The Minister cannot be an onlooker when it comes to the Guyana Police Force

Mar 17, 2011 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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If the Guyana Police Force is prevaricating in responding to legitimate enquiries from the hierarchy of the government, and if these delays are proving an obstacle to effective policy- making and monitoring, then there is only one option open to the executive.
It must apply heavy manners to those responsible for not responding in a timely manner to the political directorate.
During the recent Police Officers’ Conference, the Minister of Home Affairs criticised the force for failing to respond in a timely manner to inquiries from his office. This failure, of course, represents disrespect for the Minister and should not be tolerated.
Strong and condign action should be taken to signal that no self-respecting government is going to tolerate such a situation. While the Minister cannot interfere in the day-to-day affairs, including the management of the Guyana Police Force, there are other buttons that he can press which would ensure that those who are recalcitrant would put themselves in order.
The Minister cannot be an onlooker when it comes to matters of national security. The Minister is the person responsible to the National Assembly for the performance of the Guyana Police Force. If the security services do not perform, it is the minister who will face the political heat. When the Force has to be defended from unwarranted attack it is the minister who has to stand up and defend the Force.
Therefore when the Minister makes a request for information or a report from the Guyana Police Force there should be a prompt response.
The police must not believe that the Minister is only limited to publicly complaining. The Minister must be allowed the liberty of demonstrating that when he speaks others should listen.
There are options available that can both guard against the threat of political interference while ensuring greater accountability. The first of these is to immediately pass legislation strengthening the Police Complaints Authority, granting that entity legal powers to investigate complaints against members of the Guyana Police Force as well as the power to summon officers and ranks to hearings rather than, as is now the case, depending on the Guyana Police Force to forward information to him.
Failure of these officers and ranks to appear before a properly constituted panel of the Police Complaints Authority should result in a recommendation to the Police Service Commission for disciplinary action against the defaulting ranks.
Secondly, the political directorate should remove from the Guyana Police Force the powers to grant firearm licences. In fact there is a view that right now these powers can lawfully be exercised by the Minister of Home Affairs. A previous Minister was insistent that his role in the granting of firearm licenses was legitimate and lawful.
The police are holding on to dear life to this right to determine who gets a firearm licence. The system is subject to a great deal of controversy and therefore needs to be rationalized. One of the ways to show the Guyana Police Force that the government is serious about the situation is to remove such powers from under the Guyana Police Force.
Another way of exercising leverage over the Guyana Police Force would be to divest the Guyana Police Force of the functions of granting passports and the certification of vehicles for fitness. These proposals have long been made in the context of improving the efficiency of the force by allowing it to concentrate on core crime-fighting activities and forking out immigration and vehicle inspection functions to private companies.
The government may also wish to add to this list the certification of drivers’ licence since it has long been felt that this would perhaps be best done by an agency outside of the Guyana Police Force.
It is an embarrassing situation when a Minister of the government has to admit that he is less than satisfied by the response of the force to inquiries made by his Ministry. This suggests either a crisis of inefficiency within the Guyana Police Force or a serious level of disrespect for the minister, none of which should be tolerated.
The problem may well be that there are problems with persons within the force knowing how to write reports. There are also many police stations without any computers to prepare such reports. But if that is the cause of the situation, then it should be explained rather than have the Minister forced to complain about the lack of courtesy being shown to his office.
Unfortunately complaining is not going to help. The government must signal that it is not prepared to tolerate any slackness on the part of the Guyana Police Force and therefore should move immediately to demonstrating that it has options available to force the Force to act.

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