Dear Editor,
Your newspaper’s spotlight on the untenable situation of several acting appointments in government institutions and organizations, “Confirm top cop or let him go” Opposition MPs, (SN October 14), is highly commendable and welcome. It literally demands an end to the disturbing appearance of indecisiveness at the highest levels of government.
Equally commendable is the vocal support by opposition MPs for urgent redress on the issue of the acting Police Commissioner. We seriously need to hear, read and see more from this particular group on the day to day governance of our country, and not leave this entirely up to the ruling party or President.
If there is one thing that appears to be emerging from this bizarre approach by government, it has to be a lack of proper succession planning due to an excess of politics in the straightforward management of government. Perhaps others might attribute it to micro-management, leadership fatigue syndrome (my terminology) or even fear.
Whatever the real reason, we cannot escape the reality that the acting top cop, Mr Henry Greene, was selected under a cloud of speculation, following the revocation of two of his US visas. And it was at this juncture that the governments gambled by putting politics ahead of commonsense, thereby making Mr Greene now appear the victim of circumstances.
When the United States, via its embassy in Georgetown, revoked Mr Greene’s visas, it simply sent a strong message to the Guyana Government. And usually, when officials have their visas to America (Britain or Canada) revoked the public tends to link the decisions to narcotics or some other unbecoming behavior.
But while government is probably still waiting for official evidence linking Mr Greene to drugs, it has to be sheer irony, Mr Editor, that only a few years ago, we had a situation in which the then Home Affairs Minister, Mr Ronald Gajraj, and his then acting top cop, Mr Floyd McDonald, both had their US visas revoked under a cloud of suspicion. Today, the current Home Affairs Minister, Mr Clement Rohee, and his acting top cop, Mr Greene, both have had their US visas revoked. What’s up with this weird looking coincidence?
To government’s credit back then, though, it wisely scuttled or nixed a proposed plan to land Mr. McDonald a job under Minister Gajraj in the Home Affairs Ministry, but that’s where government parted ways with wisdom, because it apparently failed to decipher the code in the message sent in the visa revocations, by going full speed ahead with the appointments of both Messrs Rohee and Greene to their current posts.
And with the crime situation having jostled its way to the top alongside the economy as another major headache for the people, the same people are left rubbing and scratching their heads trying to figure out whether these two men are really up to the task of putting a credible dent in the burgeoning body of crime?
Government, on the other hand, does not seem seriously committed to alleviating the people’s concerns over crime. Apart from having the top cop functioning in an acting capacity, the government for the past fifteen years has been overseeing a broken criminal justice system that is being further hamstrung by an acting Chancellor of the Judiciary and an acting Chief Magistrate. How can a discerning public not detect raw politics at play here?
To boot, government appears to be picking and choosing which crimes and criminals are deserving of prosecution or persecution. Crime is crime, be it drug smuggling, gun running, money laundering, bribery, kickbacks, cooking the books, robbery under arms, assault or murder. Government, as custodian of public safety, cannot pick and choose which crimes to prosecute or even influence prosecutors or judges and magistrates to show favour to certain accused in court.
Media outlets, playing their role as part of the checks and balances system, also cannot give the impression they are lionizing criminals of any stripe, or else they will be aiding and abetting Wild West chaos in society.
I conclude by asking: Is the troubling crime situation in Guyana really reflective of the government’s mishandling of the political and economic situations? If so, then progressive forces in the country, including opposition MPs, civic groups and the free media, have to keep the pressure on government until it does right by the nation’s public safety and economic security.
Yours faithfully,
Emile Mervin