Rohee tells Nat’l Economic Forum of 1960s mayhem

Aug 16, 2013 News

Home Affairs Minister, Clement Rohee

….underscores security as prerequisite for growth in economy

By Gary Eleazar

The National Economic Forum yesterday heard from the Minister with responsibility for security within its borders and was told that “without security we are doomed to failure,” and that public safety and security are prerequisites for growth in the economy.
Minister of Home Affairs, Clement Rohee, addressed the forum yesterday prior to participants moving into working groups to prepare a strategic 10-year development plan for Guyana.
According to the Minister, it is well documented that in countries around the world where they lacked the capacity to effectively address their security challenges and guarantee public safety they become failed states.
“This is not the situation in Guyana,” according to Rohee, as he sought to impress the importance of how a lack of security can stultify the growth of an economy or even grind it to a halt.
“That is why we can’t take it for granted….It is a prerequisite for a country moving forward.”
The Minister used the opportunity to remind the forum of the mayhem that transpired in Guyana during the early 1960s. He was speaking specifically to the years, 1962 to 1964, saying that “during that time this country was torn apart by many differences among the people, between political parties, foreign intervention….it was a boiling cauldron, a pressure cooker about to explode.”
This situation, according to Rohee, resulted in Water Street being destroyed by fire and riots, as well as the same thing happening along Regent Street, which was also seriously affected by fire, looting and riots.
Water and Regent Streets represented then, as it does now, the business hub of the nation.
The Minister said that at that time in the nation’s history “people were afraid to walk the streets after certain hours.”
According to Rohee, during that era, business people were afraid to open their doors for fear of their premises being invaded, and there existed the wanton killing of people.
Rohee opined that at the time persons were afraid to use public transportation out of the fear that a bomb may explode, as is pervasive in countries currently, such as Syria, Israel or Iraq.
The Minister suggested that if one were to talk about lawlessness in Guyana as it relates to public security, they would have to delve into the history books.
“Fast track from what transpired in those days to what exists today; what exists today is nothing compared to what existed in those days.”
According to the Minister, “we are (currently) living in a society that is much more peaceful, much more politically stable and where people have grown to understand each other better and the institutions have matured.”
The Minister suggested to the stakeholders that “in the absence of security we will have anarchy, total and absolute lawlessness, the rule of the unlawful rather than the law, the rule of disorder rather than order…How can growth and development for the benefit of our citizens take place in such an environment, it is virtually impossible.”
He suggested that in the absence of the rule of law in a country there will be criminal-centred growth instead of people-centred growth.
Rohee said that the absence of public security would lead to mass migration of people, the closing of businesses, and “more and more corruption.”
The Minister stressed that in the absence of the rule of law, the nation’s social and physical infrastructure will deteriorate, if not collapse, and re-investment in the public sector will grind to a halt.
“We all have to recognize the challenges in the absence of security, whether it is national security or public safety and security….It is only in its absence that we would recognize how useful it is… But can we afford to have this happen?”
Rohee maintains that what obtains in Guyana is that there is a situation of normalcy.
He says that while there is the manifestation of criminal activity that are threats to public safety and security, “the crux of the matter is that life goes on, but sometimes we take this for granted.”
In qualifying his description of normalcy in Guyana, as it relates to containment of threats to national security and public safety, Rohee, said that each day businesses are opened and persons travel to work unhindered. Schools, he said, are opened and had there not been a normal situation, parents would not dare send their children.
“Public safety and security influence growth and development…they are two sides of the same coin, each depending each other,” Rohee asserted
He cautioned stakeholders however to not be naïve into thinking that growth and development would bring about an end to public threats and crime in general. He used Trinidad and Tobago as an example saying that even with a vibrant economy its crime is a source of concern.