MINISTER of Home Affairs, Mr. Clement Rohee said, Monday, he does not think that animals impounded in police stations are  left to starve to death, because those persons responsible for instituting the Pounds Programme are not inhumane and have no feelings for them. He was reacting to an article published in a section of the print media, which highlighted the plight of unclaimed stray donkeys in pounds at police stations.
“I don’t think they were left to starve to death. That signals a kind of ill will/disinterest on the part of the police in the stations in which the animals die. The truth of the matter is we have discovered that, since day one of the Stray Catchers Programme, nobody is coming forward to claim the donkeys,” Rohee pointed out.
The publication mentioned goats, sheep, cows, even horses but he said no one is claiming the donkeys. “I think there should be an investigation as to why donkeys are not being claimed,” he suggested.
Noting the claim is that only impounded donkeys are being seriously affected when kept in a particular environment, he said there is some truth in it, as he was told, by a veterinarian, that they should be kept in wide open spaces and it was recognised that not all pounds have that space.
Rohee said they have since recognised that people are not coming forward to claim the donkeys and, as such, they will have to change their modus operandi and find a larger place to keep the donkeys.
At the same time, the minister said it is not fair, in the context of road safety, for the donkeys to be roaming around aimlessly and they pick them up but nobody claims them.
“Now that we have realised that it is a pattern, the decision can’t be, if nobody is claiming them, we should leave them alone because they could cause an accident,” he reasoned.
Rohee observed it was reported, in the print media, that the days of donkey carts are fast disappearing since most people are buying vehicles because things are becoming more modernised in the country.
He said: ”In society, we are hardly finding people establishing a new dray or donkey carts. They don’t do it anymore, so the jackasses are becoming obsolete in that sense because people don’t have use for them.”

Alternative solution
Rohee said, with that in mind, they cannot stop the donkeys from reproducing and they are looking at an alternative solution, rather than having them die in a pound in that way and, as such, they are looking at the Stray Catchers Programme, in which measures will be put in place to prevent such occurrences.
On April 22, 2010, the Pounds (Amendment) Bill was passed in the National Assembly, having been piloted by Rohee, to increase the fee paid to a stray catcher or any other person, from $1,000 to $5,000 for every animal taken to the pound.
The categories of strays targeted include horses, ponies, cows, sheep and goats. Prior to that amendment, the legislation was last revised in 2007, hiking the fee from a mere $30 to $1,000.
However, Rohee said that, having consulted with the Regional Democratic Councils (RDCs) and Neighbourhood Democratic Councils (NDCs), as well as with a number of other stakeholders, it was realised that the fee was insufficient.
“Given the risks that are associated with this exercise, many persons desirous of performing the functions of a stray catcher made representation that the sum of $1,000 was inadequate,” he said.
According to him, subsequent to discussions at the level of Cabinet, it was agreed that the sum should be raised to $5,000 for each animal taken to the nearest pound by the stray catcher and, in 2009, the Home Affairs Ministry built and rehabilitated 17 pounds across Guyana.
He asserted that there was no abstractness in the approach to this matter and high on his ministry’s agenda was to rehabilitate or build new pounds, where necessary, over the past two years, at the cost of $13.2M.