Total control, total collapse

Jul 07, 2013 APNU Column, Features / Columnists

---

Ronald Gajraj, Gail Teixeira and Clement Rohee – the last three Ministers of Home Affairs appointed by the People’s Progressive Party Civic – have pursued a public security policy which has failed to make the country safe and citizens secure.
The ministers have preferred to concentrate on a series of short-term remedies aimed at controlling day-to-day policing instead of introducing a coherent, comprehensive, long-term security sector reform strategy. They studiously avoided reforming the Guyana Police Force in any serious way.
This approach resulted in a bizarre relationship with Axel Williams; employment of the Peruvian Leonardo Caparros Gamarra; the attempted recruitment of American Bernard Kerik and other questionable appointments. It has also led to the adoption of a rash of half-baked, semi-functional security schemes such as the Neighbourhood Policing Programme, Community Policing Groups, Crime Stoppers Scheme and the Citizens’ Security Programme – all aimed at increasing ministerial control. None of these has ever delivered the security dividend the country deserves.
The PPPC administration ignored the report of the National Steering Committee on Crime which conducted public consultations in 2002. It ignored the recommendations of the Disciplined Forces Commission which was established in 2003. It ignored the advice of the National Commission on Law and Order which it established in 2005. It ignored the numerous studies from United Kingdom experts – including those from the Metropolitan Police and the Scottish Police College. It ignored the British DfID-sponsored Security Sector Reform Action Plan (SSRAP) for which the memorandum of understanding was signed on 10th August 2007.
The PPPC decided instead to introduce the Citizen Security Programme (CSP) which has been funded by a US$19.8 million loan from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).CSP, however, is not a relevant response to the current crime crisis. It has not emerged from the numerous local efforts, experiences and exertions of the many committees and commissions. It does not fully incorporate the recommendations for rectifying specific problems of public security.
The Citizens Security Programme is a scheme that was invented by the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) to suit post-civil war situations in Latin American states such as El Salvador and Guatemala not everyday law-enforcement in Guyana. The IDB has financed CSPs in Colombia, Chile, Honduras, Nicaragua and Uruguay, states which have completely different criminal, communal and cultural profiles to Guyana.
CSP is also not national in scope. It has been tailored to deal only with certain types of crimes, common to the supposedly troublesome Demerara-Mahaica and East Berbice-Corentyne regions.  CSP ignores serious crimes. It provides no enforcement response to everyday armed robbery, piracy, narcotics-smuggling, gun-running and trafficking in persons in the Barima-Waini, Pomeroon-Supenaam, Cuyuni-Mazaruni, Potaro-Siparuni, Rupununi and other hinterland regions which fuel crime in the rest of the country.
The PPPC was bent on borrowing money to spend on the CSP model, because it placed total control in the hands of the political minister. Rohee, however, has been in no hurry even to introduce the palliative measures provided for in this programme. He had all the time in the world to think about CSP. The IDB, seven years ago in June 2006, announced the approval of a US$19.8 M loan to support the programme. Rohee sat at the table at the very Ministry of Home Affairs alongside Minister of Finance Ashni Singh and then IDB resident representative Sergio Varas-Olea at the signing ceremony for the contract for the programme in January 2007.
The current CSP variant – Ministry of Home Affairs-Citizen Security Programme: Institutional Modernisation of Guyana Police Force – was developed by Capita Symonds of East Grinstead, West Sussex, England. The main document was sent to the Programme Co-ordinator since 23rd February 2011. Rohee then waited 22 months before holding a press conference on 31st December 2012 to present selective excerpts of the plan to the public.
The current CSP proposes changes only in four areas – administration, succession-planning, professionalization and public relations. That’s all! The original CSP was predicated on fostering dialogue with the people –a disposition rarely displayed either by the Ministry of Home Affairs or the Guyana Police Force. The programme, if it is to succeed, needed to establish community action councils to initiate discussions and arrive at solutions which are community-owned, community-led and community-driven, not ministry-mandated. The programme ought to have encouraged popular participation by employing community action officers to help to organise residents into groups to find local solutions to criminal violence. CSP has not worked because it was never intended to.
The PPPC administration, if it to avoid collapse in the security sector, must ensure that its Minister of Home Affairs desists from the sort of micro-management and overbearing control of officers’ careers. He must adopt modern managerial structures and systems to develop policies to fight criminal violence. These are the realities of the public safety environment today. These are Rohee’s responsibilities.

 

 

---

---