-President wants police to have own aircraft

THE issues of inter-personal violence and gang-related crimes remain high on the agenda of the APNU+AFC government, however, Commander-in-Chief David Granger believes that funds budgeted for the Ministry of Public Security to fight crime is inadequate.
The Head of State has always contended that the Guyana Police Force (GPF) needs more resources in order to effectively tackle the country’s crime situation. As such, he noted that the $21B which was allocated to the ministry in the last two budgets was well spent, but is still very much insufficient. The ministry received a total of $14.534 billion in the 2016 budget.

“I think the amount of money is inadequate, I would certainly would have liked to give the police force in particular, more…the police force needs assets, it needs all-terrain vehicles, it needs more horses to patrol those wide areas, particularly the Rupununi…we need to put horses there because that is where some of the narco- trafficking is taking place and we need aircraft. We need fixed-wing aircraft which could patrol our borders,” the President said during his weekly televised programme ‘The Public Interest.’
President Granger was quick to admit that the force also needs to be brought up to strength, given the fact that some policemen were dismissed for misbehaviour to the extent that they were removed from their day-to-day duties.
He alluded to the Security Sector Reform which will be done by the British government, noting that a team will soon be in Guyana to reform the police force.

Tackling crime robustly
Meanwhile, while pointing out that inter-personal violence has been a continuing problem, President Granger said that government has been tackling it “robustly” by strengthening the community and neighbourhood policing units of the police force in various communities.
“We’re also, as you know, putting in mounted police on the Corentyne…country wide, we are putting more policemen on the streets, not only for Christmas but also generally because we feel most of these crimes occur at the community level. These are not big transnational crimes, but at [the] community level we know that the inflow of illegal weapons has been a contributory factor.”

He acknowledged that the illegal import of drugs and firearms have led to most murders being execution-type in the country, but still believes that government is responding in a “robust” manner.
“So I would say we have a robust response at three levels: at the community level…at the level of street crime, where there is apparently some banditry; they may be some small groups of people who are equipped with illegal firearms; and at the higher level, I would say there is still the inflow of drugs – transnational – coming from other countries and the drug trade has been fuelling execution murders particularly. We also have problems in the hinterland, where small gangs, two or three people rob gold miners.”

While statistics show that there is a decrease in crime, the President said that the perception of crime remains high within society, but his administration is working to reassure the population that the security forces are in control. President Granger remains hopeful that 2017 will see improvements in the general crime picture.