PNCR Column...Are Clement Rohee’s days as Minister of Home Affairs numbered?

PNCR Column…Are Clement Rohee’s days as Minister of Home Affairs numbered?

Sep 30, 2012 APNU Column, Features / Columnists

September has not been a good month for security in the state of Guyana. As month-end approached, the nation has had to endure the comical classroom antics of senior officers of the Guyana Police Force who appeared before the Linden Commission of Inquiry over the past week.
People have been left to wonder what sort of guidance and superintendence the Force has been receiving from Minister of Home Affairs Clement Rohee over the past six years during which he held that important portfolio.
People wonder also whether the Force will ever be able to protect citizens, enforce the law and ensure public security under Rohee’s stewardship. The Police Force’s performance might have been laughable and forgettable had people felt safer in the country. This has not been so, however. The country is still trying to come to grips with the worsening security situation in several sectors.
First is the Police Force’s own report that robberies under arms increased by 23 per cent from August 2011 to August 2012. There are now about three armed robberies every day in this country.
Second, residents of Bartica in the Cuyuni-Mazaruni Region – together with non-governmental organisations such as Red Thread, Help and Shelter, the Guyana Red Cross and the Hope Foundation, Guyana Women Miners Association, and officials of the US embassy – spoke out against the scourge of human trafficking, especially in the Region’s mining and logging districts.
Their arguments – which included residents’ personal testimonials – contradicted Rohee’s repeated denials and the claims of the so-called Ministerial Task Force on Trafficking in Persons, over which he presides, about the scale of the crime.
Third, despite the arrest of suspected pirates, fishermen are still fearful of going to sea after reports that some of their colleagues were beaten and robbed by armed pirates on September 8 in the Pomeroon-Supenaam Region.
Fourth, James Singh, Head of the Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit (CANU), reported at mid-month that CANU made two cocaine busts – amounting to about 30 kg – at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport, six hours apart of each other, during which several persons were arrested. The combined value of the drugs is said to be $21M.
It is evident that the failure of the Ministry of Home Affairs to promulgate a functional National Drug Strategy Master Plan and the ineffectualness of the so-called task force on contraband smuggling set up by the Home Affairs Ministry, have led to CANU’s inability to prevent the continuous export of cocaine from the international airport.
Fifth, the US Department of Labour’s recent Report on International Child Labor and Forced Labor, to add to September’s somber, security scenario, pronounced that children in Guyana are victims of “the worst forms of child labour”, including forced prostitution of girls as young as 12. The Report placed the responsibility for this situation squarely on the People’s Progressive Party/Civic administration. It blamed the administration indirectly for the absence of legislation and lack of a national action plan to combat the crime of child labour.
Finally, President Donald Ramotar himself seemed to be at his wits’ end. He was obliged to vent his frustration with the deteriorating public security situation, especially with regard to the Police Force, which, over the past two months, has been accused of shooting and killing four persons. The first incident occurred at Linden on 18th July when three persons – Alan Lewis, Shemroy Bouyea and Ron Somerset – were shot dead after the police opened fire on persons at the Wismar-Mackenzie Bridge. The second incident in which the Police Force has been accused of killing a citizen was on 11th September, when Shaquille Grant was shot dead in Agricola, East Bank Demerara.
President Ramotar, responding to questions from the media, complained that he was worried about police killings in the country. He said: “I am concerned with every death and shooting that takes place in this society and I want Guyana having a name as being a peaceful society, a friendly society. I don’t want our country to have a reputation of being a violent society.”
Was President Ramotar saying that it is time for a change in the security sector and was he sending a subtle signal that Rohee’s term of service is coming to an end?