The voice of the liberal democrats

Nov 04, 2015 News

No country can develop if its citizens live in constant fear of criminal attack.The first duty of a government is to provide personal security for its citizens. If it neglects to do so, it is failing in its first duty. The jury is out and soon they will be answering this question as to whether the coalition government is failing in its first duty to the people.
All government should be made to believe is that when its citizens are threatened by a systematic campaign designed to incite fear as is happening today, then it must act and act decisively.
The pattern of the crime wave in Guyana is so similar that it is difficult to escape the conclusion that these are interconnected and part of an overall plan to embarrass this coalition government. But is the coalition government prepared to avoid this embarrassment? Are we destined to continue to hear lame and weak excuses all the time such as there are shortages of policemen and that young people are not willing to join the police force?
Since the Laurie Lewis days; some 15 years ago, we have heard that there are some 2,000 vacancies in the Police Force. Yet not one of these Commissioners since then saw it as their duty to increase the training capacity of the force. Right now the Guyana Police Force can only train 330 persons every six months at the three training schools according to their Public Relations Officer who revealed this information to the public by way of a letter to the press in late August 2015.
If the demand is 2,000 persons, but the supply is 330 persons, then we may never be able to solve the crime wave in Guyana. It does not take a rocket scientist to figure that out.
Lots and lots of young people are being excluded from the training just because we do not have systems to accommodate them. It was the Police Public Relations Officer in that letter who said that 1,018 applicants have been processed, but they were put on a waitlist. Waitlist! I thought the Minister said young people are not interested in joining up? Now if you can only train 330 persons every six months, then some of those young people will have to wait just over a year to get into a police training school. We all know that will not happen and thus they will have to migrate to another profession including banditry, which is always willing to welcome new recruits.
Can we not politely ask the GDF to review and support this entire situation to get these 1,018 persons trained as a one-off intervention? As part of the package, the principal trainers will remain police officers but the tents, logistics, mess hall, training room, firing range and other facilities will be owned and manned by the GDF similar to how the UN organizes these tented communities in war zones.
The training modules and methods will entail the same process experienced in the regular police training schools. The only difference will be rather than being in a Police Compound, you will be housed in a GDF camp. The output, however, will be transformative for Guyana – 1,018 new recruits being pumped into the system after six months. Can we envisage the impact of such an endeavour?
The outcome will positively impact on a properly replenished force with a stronger ability to arrest this crime wave. President Desmond Hoyte sent a strong signal to the bandit community by ensuring that a few of them paid the ultimate price for their banditry. The government has to respond to this crime wave as if it is a T-20 cricket match to deliver some timely and immediate results. If this means going to parliament to pass new laws to give the law enforcement agencies greater power, then why not? How long more will our people without bodyguards withstand this brutalization?
I call on the Guyana Human Rights Association to start cataloguing the experiences of these victims and help in the formation of a victims’ association to advocate and lobby for greater action from the Guyana Police Force, which continue to fail the nation on a daily basis in its basic duty – to serve and protect.
How many more Nirvona Budhoos have to put their lives at risk and take the law into their own hand because we have a police force that is failing in its duty?
But irrespective of all that I have said above, none of this will be successful until and unless we are prepared to pay the police constables a living wage within the confines of the affordability of the budget. Yes we can!
Sase Singh – Washington DC ([email protected]).

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