Police need urgent help

Sep 11, 2024 Editorial

Kaieteur News – The Guyana Police Force (GPF) is sure to put up a fight.  The PPPC Government is going to play for time in the hope that the bad news goes away. The call is for scrutiny of the GPF, considering the serious developments that have rocked it in a short span of time. We fully endorse that call but take it further.  When the chronic suspicion and lack of trust that pervades Guyana are weighed, it is timely for foreign assistance to be pursued.  The GPF is in dire need of help, a good start is activating the proper parliamentary committees, with a better supporting effort including foreign expertise.

There have been reports of alleged financial wrongdoing committed inside the GPF.  A senior officer of the GPF was held at the John F. Kennedy International airport in New York.  More recently, there was a noticeable absence of GPF involvement in the huge Matthews Ridge drug bust.  The latter is astonishing, tells so much of what could be wrong inside the GPF, where it is, how it is viewed.  When there are developments of this nature, and the GPF looks less than it should, the confidence of the public takes a blow.  Matters are not helped when the GPF high command is either tightlipped or issue terse statements that reveal nothing.  When all this is absorbed, the security of citizens and prevention of crime all struggle with a void that is not easily closed.  To this end, the call is for the government to help the GPF so that it can help itself to be a more professional organization, one that begins that long and difficult process towards earning the trust and respect of Guyanese.

For starters, parliamentary scrutiny could only help, if only to get an idea of what is going on inside the GPF and how much it can deliver on its mandate to serve and protect.  Serve and protect citizens, and not its own possibly nefarious interests or those of domineering and tainted politicians.  Unless there is genuineness in getting the clearest understanding of where the GPF stands, what its weaknesses are, then the kind of help that it needs is not going to happen.  Unless the PPPC Government is open to listening and is ready to do what is best for the GPF, then its shortcomings will remain at the same deplorable levels, with the safety and security of the public degraded.  The confidence of Guyanese is already at a very low level.  Citizens have been taken advantage of by ranks on the street as they go about their lawful business and need relief.

Notwithstanding the dark clouds swirling over the GPF, the PPPC Government has seemingly gone into its customary response of putting up a wall, while feigning that all is well, and what is going on with the GPF is a momentary blip.  We do not agree with any such posture, for there have been too many major issues that all redound to the great discredit of the GPF.  This is only from what have made their way into the media, what damages the reputation of the GPF.  The concern is about what else could be going on, and how bad such are. Former Minister of Public Security in the Coalition Government, Khemraj Ramjattan, has called for the operationalization of the Public Security Committee of parliament.  An unfettered one, and one that functions with an eye to enhancing the GPF and delivering the security blanket that citizens crave, could only help.  In addition, Leader of the AFC, Nigel Hughes, has added his voice with a call for implementation of the Protective Disclosure Act of 2018, which gives some comfort to potential whistleblowers, should they come forward to share what they know.

We think that there is merit to both calls, and that the government should respond quickly and positively.  Nevertheless, it is obvious that the GPF needs an urgent major overhaul.  The input of foreign expertise would be invaluable in any such effort, if it were to ever find PPPC Government favor.  The GPF is hurting, it shows, and cannot be denied.  There must be willingness to deal with what stares in the face without delay.

• committees, Government, Guyana Police Force (GPF), parliamentary, PPPC