COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF of the Armed Forces President Bharrat Jagdeo told Police Officers yesterday that the maintenance of law and order is important if the country is to continue to make economic strides and be better equipped to withstand possible exogenous shocks, which are creeping back into focus. He also referred to what he called ‘nitpickers of projects’ and said this makes him impatient. “We are tackling policy-wise the sources of instability, because when you have unstable situations, the police and the army’s work increases tremendously,” Mr. Jagdeo said, adding it is important the Executive try to find ways of avoiding such instabilities.

The President was at  the time speaking at the opening ceremony of the annual Police Officers’ Conference being held at the Police Officers Mess, Eve Leary, Georgetown. The conference ends tomorrow.

“We meet here again, on this traditional occasion, to talk about the future of the Police Force, and to assess our performance for the previous year; and I want to say, at the very outset, that I am confident that the capable officers and the leadership of the police force will chart the course for this organisation that has withstood the test of time and adversity admirably…” the President said.

CONGRATULATIONS TO GPF
“So I want to begin by congratulating you for serving professionally for the past year; and in spite of the criticism that we see from time to time emanating from the papers, and some of that is justified, overall, I think our police force and its record of service and record of achievement stand second to none, particularly given the level of resources that we have come from and we are trying to achieve,” he said.

QUOTE:‘So I urge you not to be discouraged by what has become open season on everyone – professionals and others, in this country. Because when you analyse carefully whether those criticisms are widespread, you would find that they are often directed by a small cabal of people with their own purpose, and often their purpose is not constructive; it is destructive. They feel they have a goal…they are just sour and bitter. Bitter about the past and maybe that they cannot be a part of our bright future.’ – President Jagdeo

“So I urge you not to be discouraged by what has become open season on everyone – professionals and others, in this country. Because when you analyse carefully whether those criticisms are widespread, you would find that they are often directed by a small cabal of people with their own purpose, and often their purpose is not constructive; it is destructive. They feel they have a goal…they are just sour and bitter. Bitter about the past and maybe that they cannot be a part of our bright future,” he said.
“They are going to tear down everything that comes in sight; even the most admirable, the noblest idea, they have to find something negative about it. Now when I say  that, it does not mean that we are perfect, because we are not perfect. We do make mistakes and those mistakes should be written about, we should be criticised for those both at the police force and at the level of my government,” he urged.

According to the President, people can still criticise and remain positive.  “But some want to pull down this enterprise that we call Guyana – the Guyana enterprise to which we all slave, basically to hold up, so that future generations have a better life than what we had.”

“And so I ask you to be proud of your achievements, to be proud of them, because when I do the comparisons, we have done extremely well. I know most of you have been following the events of the past few months – and as officers I expect you to…,” Mr. Jagdeo told the Conference.

These events, he noted, take place not only in Guyana and the region, but in the world at large. “…and you would have seen the momentous changes that are sweeping parts of the world…changes that just a few short months ago would have been inconceivable,” he said.

In this regard, the President pointed to the global shifting in allegiances where people move from strategic interests to principles and back to strategic interests.

“Many want to define democracy and freedom as it suits their interest,” he said. “I have seen people rewriting the concept of what they feel, at the national level, democracy and freedom should mean.”

He continued: “Most of us have to be cognisant of these (global) changes and what they mean for international relations. Policemen too have to be aware of these changes, [like] those being seen in the Middle East which have caused significant instability…we have a new set of challenges which recur largely and our capacity to tackle them has not increased because of short-sightedness of political leadership,” he declared.

FOOD SECURITY
The President spoke of the challenges of food security, which is a cause of some of the instability in the world and could be the cause of future instability in the region.

“We saw it in 2008 when countries with a fairly high per capita income in this region had riots because of lack of food.

He said that the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) food index has risen above the level of that of 2008, and explained that the price of many food items has skyrocketed.

“Every time it goes up, millions more people fall into poverty. In the past few months, it is estimated that 400,000,000 people have gone from eating on a daily basis to not having enough to eat,” the President said.

He said although fuel prices have also increased, they have not yet reached the level of 2008, though they are heading in that direction. And because of the Middle East instability, President Jagdeo said “we don’t see any short term pressure of mitigating this. We know how these things affect our ability to manage and to produce growing quantities of goods and services to our people.”
“In the Caribbean, we use about 30 percent of GDP to import fuel for our needs. A country like the U.S. uses about 5 percent of its GDP [for the same purpose]. Just imagine having to use almost a third of our GDP just to import fuel, what impact this has on balance of payments and on variables like interest rates, exchange rates and inflation,” the President said.

He said, too, that most people are worried about a round of imported inflation in the future and “we too have to be worried and I expect officers of the police force are aware of this, because we don’t live in a vacuum.”

Today, he said Guyana’s capacity to tackle these crises have grown tremendously. “We were the basket case of the Caribbean just 15 years ago, with a future that was so bleak, characterised as below Haiti. Our capacity at that time to manage crises was non-existent,” the President said.

“Today, in spite of our growing budget, we have reduced the size of the fiscal deficit. It means we are paying more of our bills. When the size of the foreign debt was seven and a half times the size of the national economy, today it has come down to 35 percent of the economy.
“Our debt [levels] are where the developed countries used to be when they lectured us on debt sustainability,” the President said.
Speaking of the amount of money allocated to the disciplined forces for 2011 – US$66M – the President said that this figure needs to be doubled or tripled in order for it to be adequate.
However, he said government could not spend money it does not have.
He said the capacity of the economy has grown in the last four years, from $290B to over $400B. “Once it grows, our capacity to fund more activities will grow,” he said.
The President told the policemen that their well-being is linked to the well-being of the economy and this is a point that is very important, because law and order is important to economic development and growth.
“Five years ago, our reserves were US$200 plus million; now it is close to US$800M, sitting in the Central Bank,” he said.

“This is money for a rainy day and you are going to have hard times to come in the future,” he said.

“We are the only net exporter of food in the region and our production of food is growing,” he said.
“With the new plan to open up large scale agriculture in the intermediate and hinterland savannahs, which is already on the way, our capacity to produce food will be [enhanced].”

President Jagdeo said two of the biggest challenges his government is dealing with is food security and energy stability, and the latter through the hydropower plant that is being built.

“It will supply our entire country with electricity…we now use [over 80 MW] of power nationally, the hydro will generate something like 150 plus MW, almost twice what GPL produces,” he said, adding that private demand will utilise the extra energy and that the price of electricity will come down.

The project, he noted, will reduce Guyana’s vulnerability to fuel price shocks.

“We are even looking to use some of our molasses to make ethanol to blend with our gasoline so we become more environmentally friendly, but also there is a tremendous cost-saving in terms of impact on balance of payments,” he said.