…summons Sydney James to meeting to address issues of alleged mismanagement

COMMISSIONER of Police Leslie James on Wednesday confirmed that he summoned Head of the Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU), Assistant Commissioner of Police, Sydney James, on Wednesday to a meeting to discuss issues at the agency, which has come under public scrutiny since the firing of adviser Dr. Sam Sittlington and the resignation of another senior official.

James, without going into details, told the Guyana Chronicle that the meetings will be continuous. He declined to comment on reports that Sydney James had been absent from the job and when asked to comment on alleged mismanagement of SOCU, the police chief said he has not yet made that assessment.

On Wednesday, Minister of Public Security Khemraj Ramjattan told the Guyana Chronicle that some information came to him about developments at the SOCU but since those are operational matters, he has asked the Commissioner of Police to look into them as he does not want to interfere with the operations of the force, administrative and operational issues. There were reports that Sydney James has been off the job but Minister Ramjattan said that he did not sanction James being off the job and that the question will be better posed to the Commissioner of Police.

There are reports surfacing now that SOCU is facing a number of issues including the operational funds for the agency being mismanaged. The Guyana Chronicle was told by one person close to the oversight of the agency that the problems have been long-standing and that the Commissioner of Police was asked to address it but, from the look of things, other issues got into the way and that prevented the Top Cop from immediately addressing the issue which are now making their way into the public domain.

One senior source indicated that Sittlington did indeed observe issues as it relates to mismanagement at the agency and those issues were raised with the head of SOCU. Information now coming to the fore is that Sittlington faced resistance at a very high level within SOCU when he was first brought to the agency, but given government’s determination to have the programme of the agency be carried on with, those resistance had to be quelled.

Based on reports, Sheronie James, the former deputy head of SOCU who recently resigned over concerns about her credentials, was hired by the agency after she provided documentation stating that she was an ACCA affiliate when, in fact, the certificate which she provided belonged to another person who lived in Ghana and who carried an identical name as hers. “No checks and balances were done to ascertain if indeed the woman was as qualified as she claimed to be. In light of her not being an expert, if you cannot be deemed an expert then all our cases will go bad,” one source indicated.

On Wednesday, repeated efforts to contact Sydney James proved futile. Sydney James, who was the spy Chief for the Guyana Defence Force was seconded to the Guyana Police Force by the Donald Ramotar Administration.