Minister David Patterson does not have police power

Feb 09, 2016 Letters

Dear Editor,
I disagree with the conclusion in your editorial of Monday 8th, that the Minister responsible for GPL is to blame for a suspect in a major fraud investigation leaving the country. I think your editorial reinforces the notion common among Guyanese that ministers of government are omnipotent and have the power in law to ‘order’ arrests, detentions, and otherwise restrict the movement of ordinary citizens.
In the case you highlight, even if the Minister had direct involvement in the affairs of GPL (an autonomous corporation with a board of directors) he would have had to lodge a credible complaint with the police authorities whom I believe have jurisdiction for immigration and travel out of the country. They in turn would have had to detain the suspect and promptly bring him before a magistrate to effect the restriction on his travel.
Minister Patterson, as far as I know, is not an officer of GPL. And even though he like every other citizen knew of the allegations in this case, I am wondering how a man with so much on his plate in terms of stabilizing a decidedly shaky infrastructure, would find the time much, less the authority, to be monitoring and restricting the movement of a suspected miscreant.
Some would argue that ministers of the government are not administrative officers but policy formulators; others expect Ministers to involve themselves personally in correcting every hitch in the system, including fixing leaking kokers or preventing individual murders. Ministers themselves make public statements or address citizens in a way that imply that they are all-seeing, all-knowing overseers of public rectitude.
The reality in Guyana is that suspicion of criminal wrongdoing at high levels can only be proven or disproven by evidence collected and presented by Police and DPP investigators to the Courts. The GPL suspect in this case, slipped through the huge cracks in the justice system.
Perhaps KN should zero in on the Cabinet’s (and Parliament’s) responsibility to urgently address the real weaknesses in the lawful process, for example the woeful inadequacies of the Guyana Police Force which all and sundry know to be long overdue for systemic reform.
In the meantime let us refrain from suggesting and assigning powers to Ministers that they do not have.
Maxwell Hinds

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