Absolute balderdash

Aug 21, 2011 Letters

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Dear Editor,
I would greatly crave your indulgence in publishing this piece because it pains me to see what is happening in our country, yet those who are in-charge seem to be in a ‘Rip-Van¬Winkle’ slumber. Absolute balderdash is the nonsensical response of the police public relations department to Kaieteur News exposure of what transpired at its Senior Administrative meeting a few weeks ago!(KN 2011-08-16).
How on earth can alleged drug links to top police officers can be a private matter? The Guyana Police Force is a public institution of the State of Guyana with a specific Constitutional mandate to serve and protect the people of this country, not to enrich itself while being in cahoots with drug kingpins!
Let’s look at what was presented before us and we’ll begin to understand either the magnitude of the incompetence within the Guyana Police Force, or the deliberate collusion to appear incompetent so that they can get away with their unsavoury and rotten practices.
A main operative responsible for the strike force, the TSU is driving a BMW to work each day. His excuse was that his vehicle is under repairs and so he borrowed the BMW which he has been driving for months, from a friend.
It so happened that the friend’s brother is allegedly linked to drug running in Guyana in a big way and not the petty dime and dollars kind! By inference then, a number of conclusions can be drawn and one single questioned asked.
Is this officer competent or cerebral enough to understand the concept of linkages? Or is it because he is in the right groove in the hierarchy of police power? This is not a rhetorical question. It is a very powerful statement that touches at the core of the organizational politics within the police force.
Another newly commissioned officer, no less than the Personal Attendant to the Commissioner, drives to work with an even more expensive 4×4 vehicle.
He too, like the TSU bossman, offered an explanation when called to answer to the revelation in the same meeting. The vehicle belongs to his “girlfriend or fiancé” Now who is this person? No other than an alleged member of a king pin drug family who herself is allegedly involved in a major way in the drugs trade! Members of the family were or are jailed in the USA, one killed in Trinidad and it continues.
This is the man who does the day-to-day runnings of the Commissioner of Police and who, I assume, is au fait with many other state related issues. Here is the big issue.
Both were accused of the same thing. One was transferred with immediate effect; the other, one of the golden boys, remained? Glaring, isn’t it? Both vehicles were being used by these Officers for months.
They were being parked in the Compound of the Headquarters of the Guyana Police Force for that period in full view of all their underlings and Officers, including all the Officers attached to the police headquarters, from the Commissioner of Police to the Assistant Commissioner Operations, Assistant Commissioner Administration, Assistant Commissioner law Enforcement and the premier Intelligence gathering Unit, Special Branch! And yet, none of these ever questioned whose vehicles they are? Isn’t
this an indictment of the so called professionalism of these stalwarts of the law? In view of this ‘professionalism’ then how do you proceed to try the devil’s case in hell? Out of all these top guns, none were aware of these two vehicles and the linkages?
This raises a complex of issues that hit at the very core of the Guyana Police Force. Why are policemen at this point still not being issued with their new Police identification? It was bungled from the beginning, the incompetence is beyond imagination.
Who was responsible for sourcing the equipment? No other that another golden boy in the system! It took about nine months to get the system working after adding piece by piece and not knowing what is required by the system.
Then it took another seven months to source ink after the initial batch was completed. After close to two years of acquiring the relevant technology 500 cards were printed? Efficiency a la Guyana Police Force.
Security cameras were installed all over the main headquarters, yet still a truck and a mini bus , not property of the police, entered the compound, were fuelled up and nothing were registered on the cameras.
It was discovered that two hours of recordings were missing! This is happening in the headquarters of the Guyana Police Force, the nerve center of our law and order agency. Maybe the police hierarchy can tell the public about the component of the Citizen Security Program which attempts to integrate the information collecting and data base system at each police station(ICIS) funded by the International Development Bank and overseen by Mr. Khemraj Rai, a former lecturer in Management at the University of Guyana.
It is in shambles and cannot produce the information it was intended to produce. Let the police public relation refute these facts. At the end of the project implementation period, the only thing that would be achieved is the existence of a non-functional system, mired in inefficiency and incompetence which started from the Project Managers and System Administrators hired by the Ministry of Home Affairs. Plenty talks, but unfortunately, no tangible results, only dysfunction.
Then there is the infamous “Primulus,” a patrol boat purchased one year and a half ago and to date has not seen the light of the Demerara River water? Another set of golden boys were involved.
Who has a gold dredge in the Mazaruni and on whose land claim is it working on? And who is the newly promoted Sergeant that allegedly collects the gold for the dredge owner? Do some investigative journalism and you’ll see these people stink to high heaven in corruption.
According to the man in the street, the higher the rank, greater the “prags”.
Nepotism and rear licking is rampant within the force. So what officer Merai raised is just the tip of the “Greeneburg”. As the organizational politics would have it, incompetence is being rewarded on the basis of loyalty and the old boys school, not to ideals, but to individuals in power positions, big and little dictators who themselves are big on noise but small on performance.
That is why they sideline the very few, but forceful and vocal Officers while the golden boys from the clique are featured everywhere.
Is that why seven in top positions with the rank of Assistant Commissioners are retirees who were brought back at the same rank? It is time that Minister Rohee starts smelling the rose and grasps the bulls by the horn, quite unlike Gail Texeira, whose incompetence as Home Affairs Minister was only surpassed by that of Feroze Mohammed. Bring back Minister Gajraj.
Name and Address withheld

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