Latest update November 5th, 2024 1:00 AM
Police Cadet Officers frustrated over stagnation
In 2008, then President Bharat Jagdeo challenged the Guyana Police Force to appoint 50 Cadet Officers over three years in a move that was intended to strengthen the officer corps of the organization.
However, five years later, Cadets, even from the first batch are still waiting to be confirmed in the gazetted position of Assistant Superintendents.
Police Cadet Officer John Barker (right) who copped the best graduating prize in 2010 is one of the officers awaiting confirmation as Assistant Superintendent.
The reason being given for this apparent administrative hiccup is the lack of vacancies in the Assistant Superintendent bracket.
Cadet Officers are ranks who have been earmarked to be gazetted officers of the Force. The rank is just above that of an Inspector.
The Cadet Officers eventually become Assistant Superintendents upon successful completion of their Cadetship.
Under what is being touted as the ‘Jagdeo Cadet Scheme’, the first batch of 15 police cadet officers graduated from the Basic Cadet Officer Training Programme in 2009.
This group was followed by larger groups of Police Cadet Officers in the following years up to the last batch of two in 2011.
There were four batches in all that satisfied Jagdeo’s mandate for the Force.
But according to a police administrative expert, there was no provision to accommodate the Cadet Officers into the gazetted police ranks.
It was explained that the system could only accommodate a certain number of Assistant Superintendents and there is a preference for experienced Inspectors and Chief Inspectors to fill positions that become available from time to time.
“Whoever was responsible should have revised the system to accommodate the Cadets,” the expert told Kaieteur News.
Jagdeo’s 2008 mandate to have 50 Police Cadet Officers appointed and trained, has placed the Force in the dilemma of also stagnating the elevation of some categories of ranks.
“The Police, in their haste to satisfy Jagdeo’s mandate, fast tracked the Cadetship Programme without making the necessary provisions. Now these Cadets are languishing in their Cadet position for years,” he added.
This newspaper was reliably informed that after two years as a Cadet Officer, once there is no blemish in their files, the officers are eligible for promotion to Assistant Superintendents.
IN 2001 a group of ranks had written to the Force’s administration expressing concern that such a large Cadet scheme could jeopardise the upward mobility of the ranks below, especially Inspectors and Sergeants.
The contention is that with so many junior gazetted officers, there will be very little space for ranks just below to be promoted.
For instance, in 2011 the Force promoted only nine Inspectors to the rank of Assistant Superintendents.
But this is small when compared to a significant number of Sergeants who were promoted to the rank of Inspectors- 24 to be precise and 40 Corporals to Sergeants.
One Officer agreed that there should be some mechanism to ensure that the learned Inspectors and Sergeants of police are not stifled.
It was pointed out that most of the Cadet Officers were fast tracked into the officer corps with less than two years police experience; some had even less.
“Some of them were taken directly from the training school. Because of the lack of experience of some of them, the Force had to design a special course in the Training School to teach them policing after they would have completed the Standard Officers Course,” the expert stated.
Thankfully the police have reached the target for the Cadet Scheme; so for the past two years there have been no Police Cadets on the Standard Officers Course.
And with the Police Service Commission not in place, the current Cadets are staring at more frustration as the situation is being further compounded.
“We trained with people from the army and those guys have already been confirmed; some have even been promoted higher, while we are still Cadets,” one of the affected Cadet Officers stated.
As a consequence of their stagnation, the Cadet Officers are being denied the benefits of their gazetted colleagues, including duty-free vehicles.
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