THE DUTY OF THE GOVERNMENT

Aug 18, 2011 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

The responsibility for making policy within the security sector resides with the executive. The responsibility for announcing policy initiatives also resides with the executive. Those responsibilities must never be taken lightly and those entrusted with the political responsibility for the security sector should never allow any of those responsibilities to slip from its grasp. Never!
To do so would be to court disaster and lose favour in the eyes of the public. Even where the executive makes policy, it should unfailingly ensure that it is the one which announces these measures to the public and never delegates that task.
A few days ago, it was reported that a senior officer of the Guyana Police Force had indicated that police clearance may soon be required for those operating public transportation on the roads.
This is no doubt a decision that was taken by the government and its announcement should have been made by the government and not left to others. It was a careless act for the government to have allowed such an announcement to have been made by someone other than a minister or a political operative.
The possibility that minibus conductors and drivers may soon have to obtain police clearance in order to operate vehicles on our roadways is a waste of valuable time. Such a decision only places greater powers in the hands of the police, and should be immediately be dispensed with.
It will create unnecessary frustration and encourage corruption. Persons wishing to be employed as drivers and conductors on our roads are going to go to great extremes to obtain these police clearances, and this will only encourage greater corruption within the system.
A person wishing to work on a bus does not have the latitude of time. The owner of the vehicle is not going to wait one week for an applicant to get his or her police clearance. They are going to find someone who either has such a clearance or can get it in a matter of days.
Thus, those persons without the right connections to get the clearance are not going to be licenced to operate the public transport vehicles.
But what if someone was convicted of an offence? Should this person be prohibited from seeking work simply because they would not qualify for a police clearance?
What is going to become of all of those persons convicted of crimes but who may have turned over a leaf? Are they to be denied employment simply because of their past?
What does a police clearance have to do with persons operating public vehicles on our roads? Why should a police clearance be a requirement for operating vehicles?
If someone on the other hand was convicted of a charge of careless or dangerous driving, the police may claim that by denying that person the right to drive on our roadways is in the public interest.
But it is not for the police to decide on who should be disqualified from driving because of an offence. The police certify drivers as being fit and competent to drive, but no one should be disqualified by the police from driving simply because they may have been previously charged for careless or dangerous driving.
The authority to decide whether a driver constitutes a threat to public safety belongs to the courts and therefore any decision by the executive to indirectly give to the police these powers is wrong.
It is now the duty of the government to explain itself in relation to this issue of police clearance. There are persons being employed each day within the government who are not required to have police clearance. So why should public transportation operators be subject to new regulations?
The service provided by the police in granting clearance to individuals should only be for those who are seeking such clearance for the purposes of migrating. When it comes to domestic issues, there should not be any such requirement.
And certainly there should be no requirement for persons to obtain such documentation so as to be approved to drive or conduct vehicles on the roads.
It is time for the government to speak, and never again should they allow public officials employed by the state to announce on matters of government policy.

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