Shake-up or clean out?

Sep 10, 2017 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

The report of the Commission of Inquiry into the police investigation of an alleged plot to assassinate the President of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana has not yet been made public, but already there are suggestions that there is going to be a ‘fix’ applied to correct the deficiencies in the Guyana Police Force.
The report of the COI cannot be the basis for identifying the full range of those deficiencies. The report addressed an investigation and not the structure or deficiencies of the force.
These deviancies would have formed part of the Security Sector Reform Programme (SSRP) undertaken by the British government.
That Guyana needed either – the COI or the SSRP – is still being questioned. As the leader of the Opposition said, a review, rather than a COI, would have had a less demoralizing effect on the Guyana Police Force. And the SSRP is not going to produce anything other than the previous set of recommendations which had been made under a prior SSRP.
If after 50 years of Independence, Guyana has to be asking the former colonizers to undertake a review of its security sector; if this cannot be done under an independent government, then what is the value of Guyana’s independence?
Reforms in the Guyana Police Force are not going to help much in improving the security of citizens unless there is change in the culture of the society and the Force itself. There is a culture of lawlessness – from squatting to illegal vending – our country.
Itinerant vendors were removed from selling in the avenue on Camp Street but either they have gone back or new vendors have taken their place. Mobile eating houses were asked to move from that part of Camp Street but a mobile unit on King Street, a mere 25 metres away from City Hall is allowed to sell.
A fast food service is being allowed to operate on the parapets, presenting a bugbear to traffic and a mobile bread unit has now joined the list of businesses appearing on council’s parapets. The members of the Guyana Police Force are not imported from overseas. They are recruited from the members of society – a society that is overflowing with lawlessness.
A culture of lawlessness also pervades the Guyana Police Force. It was only because of public pressure that the Traffic Department launched a campaign against non-factory tints on vehicles being driven by members of the Guyana Police Force.
People complain as to how hard times are but you would be surprised how many ordinary police constables are driving expensive motor vehicles even though their salaries can barely afford the monthly costs of running the vehicles, but maintenance. A culture of lawlessness has become entrenched within the Force and this culture must be plucked rather than reformed.
Police are not supposed to be making random traffic stops of motorists. Yet it is still happening. And who do you complain to when the gossip in the streets is that junior ranks have quotas of donations to make to senior officers?
The Guyana Police Force is perceived to be the most corrupt institution in Guyana. The government came into office with this perception, also. So what does one expect the government to do, other than to shake- up the Force?
But a shakeup will not go far enough in altering the culture of corruption and lawlessness within the Force. A shakeup represents reform. What the Guyana Police Force needs is a cleanout. What the Police Force needs is a laxative to flush out the rottenness out of its system.
Unfortunately, the body has been infected. Even a cleanout will not help. A new Police Force has to be created. But what difference will that make when the members will still have to be drawn from a society in which lawlessness is a way of life? Reform of the Guyana Police Force has to begin with reform of society.

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