MORE than 300 members of the Guyana Police Force (GPF) under the Citizen Security Programme (CSP) were trained over the past year in 26 areas in capacity building by the consulting overseas entity, the Emergence Group.
A closing ceremony was held yesterday for the GPF comprehensive training plan at the Police Officers’ Mess Annexe, Eve Leary, Georgetown.
The Emergence Group is a consulting firm from the United States and has been conducting special training courses at the Felix Austin Police College since December, 2009.  The courses included areas such as instructor development, advanced facilitation skills, basic computer literacy, computer enhanced crime analysis, information-based decision making for police executives, interviewing and interrogation techniques, informants and gathering intelligence, drug identification and investigation, crisis intervention, kidnapping, effective investigations, fraud and financial crimes, developing an effective case file, case management, case review, development of a case file (recruit), crime scene management, policing multi-cultural and diverse communities, effectively dealing with people, police mentoring programme, designing strategies for quality service, delivering quality service, curriculum design and designing and conducting training evaluation.

In his feature address, Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee said that the quality of ranks is based on the level of service and the public look forward to an improved GPF.
Rohee pointed out that the day to day management of the GPF is often looked at, and training came at a good time for the Force in its growth and development aspects.
He also urged the GPF to maintain its professionalism and spoke of benefits of the training programme.
Rohee stated that steps are being made to strengthen the GPF and he encouraged ranks to take advantage of training programmes offered to build their capacity.

Commissioner of Police, Henry Greene, in brief remarks, said that the GPF is there to serve the people and he encouraged ranks to treat the public right.
Greene noted that the benefits of the training programme will be seen years down the line.

Coordinator of CSP, Khemraj Rai, in his remarks, said that the training the police received over the past year represents only one sub-component of CSP.
He added that CSP is being funded through a loan by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) in January 2007, and was implemented in 2008 with three components – modernisation of capacity building of GPF, modernisation of Ministry of Home Affairs, and Community Action Component.
Rai stated that the three areas listed all focus on security matters in which MOHA is an oversight body.