Every reason to believe the crime wave will become worse

Aug 29, 2017 Letters

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Dear Editor,
The daily scandals and controversies which have enveloped the Coalition Government, have distracted public attention away from the crime wave, that continues to reek havoc on law abiding citizens of this land.
The Guyana Police Force (GPF) seems to have stopped issuing its traditional monthly bulletin of crimes committed throughout the country. My information is that the last of such bulletin was issued in April 2017. This is another example of crucial information being kept away from the public.
Public security and the reduction of crime were huge platform promises of the APNU/AFC during the 2015 elections campaign. The population drank deeply of this cool -aid. After all, their Presidential Candidate was supposed to be an experienced security expert and their list of candidates for those elections comprised of dozens of highly decorated soldiers and ex-Police Officers, including a Police Commissioner. Most of them are now in the Government, holding different portfolios.
The nation was met with its first shock on the incompetence and ill-preparedness of this Government on the issue of crime and security when just after a few months in office, the President instructed the Public Security Minister and the Commissioner of Police to craft a crime-fighting plan. Only then, the nation realized that the promises made during the elections campaign of the existence of such a plan was a manifest falsehood.
The crime wave has continued unabated over the past two years.  To this devastating phenomenon, one must add the two worst disasters at Georgetown Prisons ever witnessed in a prison system in the Caribbean; the President’s  insistence on continuing to pardon criminals convicted of violent crimes; the release by Public Security Minister, Khemraj Ramjattan, of dozens of prisoners convicted of violent crimes long before the end of their sentences, after the last prison fire; a declining economy; no new jobs being created nor any job creating initiative being pursued by the Government; no new investments in two and a half years; widespread dismissal in the public sector on alleged discriminatory grounds coupled with widespread dismissals in the private sector because of contractions in the economy.
Against such a backdrop, there is every likelihood that the crime wave will continue to soar. Not surprisingly, last week, an online international website listed Guyana amongst the top 10 most dangerous countries in the world. The Public Security Minister continues to operate as though he is in a trance with no indication that now, or in the near future, can he competently tackle this cancer of criminality, ripping away at the fabric of our society. At the level of the Government, the position is no different, as there does not seem to be a comprehensive crime fighting strategy being pursued.
In the face of such intransigence and inaction, the criminals are becoming bolder and more brazen. The Minister of Public Security has systematically dismantled a vibrant network of community policing with no substitute to fill that void. Residents in communities, who communally rise up and capture and beat an occasional bandit, are themselves treated like bandits and charged by the Police. This is as a result of the President’s condemnation of such reaction by the citizens. While the President may be correct in principle, the residents have been quick to complain that they do not see the same swift condemnation from the President when the criminals rob and plunder them.
In a society so infested with criminality, one would expect that the Government of the day would be throwing all its weight and as much support and resources as possible,  to its premiere crime fighting institution, in this case the Guyana Police Force (GPF). Not so with the Coalition Government. There is, arguably, a systematic orchestrated strategy to demoralize the upper echelons of the GPF. This became visible several months ago when one sensed the unnecessary strife created between the Commissioner of Police and the next in line.
The picture became clearer when a wholly unnecessary Commission of Inquiry (COI) was established to inquire into whether an alleged plot to assassinate the President was properly investigated by the GPF. A close associate of the Government was appointed as the single Commissioner. From the inception of the inquiry, his bias became both apparent and formidable. The COI was clearly intended to publicly embarrass a few identified top ranking officers of the Force. Throughout the inquiry, they were pitted against each other for the public’s consumption. In the end, the Force was eventually embarrassed, its professional image further tarnished and the targeted officers humiliated. This must have resulted in a hemorrhaging of public confidence in the Force and a loss of morale for its members.
The matter is compounded by the President issuing unconstitutional directives to the Police Service Commission (PSC) restraining them from proceeding to deal with promotions in the Force. The attempt by the Minister of State, a lawyer, to justify the President’s erosion of the independence with which the Constitution clothes the PSC, was simply clumsy.
It does not appear that the Government views the rate of criminality in this land as a serious priority. In my view, it accords a greater priority to subjecting its political rivals to criminal investigations. So the Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU), rather than using its resources, time and personnel to investigate genuine cases of money laundering and drugs trafficking, is unleashed, on an almost full time-basis, upon Opposition Members of Parliament and supporters of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP). In the same vein, the Government has established the dubious State Assets Recovery Agency (SARA), a controversial Bill, to govern its operations.
Expectedly, this Bill is now the subject of a legal challenge in the High Court, on the grounds of unconstitutionality. Again, the Government’s focus with SARA seems to be the investigation of the past Government. $113 million was just released by the National Assembly for the operations of SARA. SARA appears to have no other mandate. The Director of SARA is being paid $1.3 million and the Legal Advisor $1.4 million. Both of these salaries are higher than that of the Commissioner of Police. The salary of the receptionist is $120,000. This is higher than the salary of a Sergeant in the Guyana Police Force. These realities graphically illustrate the priorities of this Government.
Anil Nandlall

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