President Bharrat Jagdeo is opposed to efforts for the creation of another plan for the security sector and has insisted that the implementation of the Security Sector Action Plan with a heightened focus on meeting targets is needed.
Responding to the joint call by the AFC and GAP for a new security plan to deal with the current crime situation, Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr Roger Luncheon in a letter to the two parties dated February 7, 2008 said that the donor community and the British High Commissioner to Guyana have pronounced on elements of the action plan slated for implementation this month.
He said that the President has expressed profound reservations about their analysis of the contemporary events and the nature of the government’s responses; and he asserts that the government recognized the need to respond aggressively to the Lusignan outrage as he remains convinced that “it was the ambiguous statements of leaders and the public statements of the apologists who make it more difficult to pursue such a response.”
According to AFC leader Raphael Trotman, while government spokespersons are saying that the AFC and GAP were calling for something that is already there, he said that the fact remains that the security plan brought to the National Assembly was just a part of what was recommended in the UK-funded Security Sector Reform (SSR). He said it needs to be rewritten or updated because it was out of context with what is now unfolding.
Some parts of the SSR document list a number of risk factors which in the opinion of the authors, Trotman said, are admitting that the implementation has attendant risks, none of which was in the document the government tabled in parliament.
The risk factors include the government’s selective approach to reform and reluctance to pursue reforms beyond policing; pursuing operational aspects of the plan without concomitant governance (or justice) reforms; an overly controlled process and lack of inclusiveness bolstered by the government’s recent election victory. In relation to financing reforms, the risks were lack of, or insufficient funding, unpredictable or delayed disbursements, absorption capacity challenges which negatively impact on reform momentum; lack of the required human resources and/or weak implementation capacity, or relapse into a tradition of non-implementation; challenges in locating local partners outside of government given the weakness and the politicization of both parliament and civil society; lack of political will to break the linkages between crime and politics; disruptions arising out of politicised racial ethnic cleavages; and ensuring appropriate levels of funding through the budgetary process to sustain the institutional and organizational reforms implemented.
