By Heppilena Ferguson
The government’s decision to go ahead with plans to sack nine Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit (CANU) officers after they failed their recent lie-detector tests has not gone down well with the parliamentary opposition parties, even as the individuals await their official termination letters.
The employees recently met with Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee, who in a brief interaction with a few reporters following the launch of the country’s new daily on Thursday, confirmed that the officers will definitely be fired. Rohee acknowledged that there was need for an overhaul of the entire unit and added that a substantive head would have to be appointed after the outstanding issues are settled. He said the records of those who have to go home are being examined carefully with a view to ensuring that their benefits are paid to them.
However as the debate about the tests being used as the basis to fire the officials gains momentum, members of the opposition are not only calling for the tests to be extended to other branches of law enforcement but also for government officials to be subjected to the testing. A call has also come for the cases handled by the CANU officers to come under serious review.
Leader of the Parliamen-tary Opposition and People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) leader Robert Corbin when asked about his party’s opposition to the government’s move said he was interested in knowing first of all the questions which the officers were asked, which led to some of them failing.
“Were they asked if they have ever taken bribes, taken directives from politicians?” he queried. He said only a detailed explanation of the questions asked could help in establishing “this mysterious labour law which is leading to their discredit as officers of the unit.” He said too that he felt that the officers have been put in a position where they cannot defend themselves.
“We lack the information upon which to really make a proper assessment but if this is a new criteria then all government officials should be made to undergo lie detector tests.”
Alliance for Change leader Raphael Trotman said he believed that this move by government was “downright wrong” but he also felt that the unit should be wiped clean of corruption.
‘Cinderella’
However he said for the government to go ahead and sack the officials based on the results of this one test is an act against their basic human rights. “But it seems as though the importance of rule of law and fairness have been lost,” he said. Trotman told Stabroek News that he felt that over the years CANU has been treated like a ‘Cinderella’ organization.
“I don’t know if this is the case because it comes under the Guyana Revenue Authority and the Ministry of Finance but they never really get the type of treatment a unit like that deserves,” he maintained.
He added that he felt that the unit has been deliberately sidelined and has been played–off against the police narcotics branch and was never allowed to properly develop.
He said he knew of situations where members of the unit were put on duty without firearms and they have had to make individual applications for firearms. About the imminent sacking of the unit’s head, Trotman argued that Orville Nedd must have shown some level of capability to act in the position after former head Bernard Trueman had resigned “but by targeting him and others and not giving them a right to be heard, speaks of the dictatorial attitude of this government.”
“While we believe that the unit should be cleaned of corruption, we believe that the method used was biased,” he added. He pointed to ongoing investigations at the Guyana Revenue Authority where it is believed that there have been several inconsistencies by members of staff there, forcing a wide investigation. But he could not understand why all of a sudden CANU has come under the hatchet, he said.
“Now they want to destroy the unit and turn a blind eye to the issues in other agencies because we have heard nothing more about the Fidelity investigations. So they are using this as an excuse to go after CANU and I feel it is deliberately being destroyed because of its potential to be effective against the drug trade,” Trotman declared.
Meanwhile, Rise Organise and Rebuild (ROAR)/Guyana Action Party (GAP) Member of Parliement Everall Franklin is also in support of the tests being taken by government officials and further suggested that that since these employees are now being discredited, all the cases they handled should come under review.
“And all the persons that were sent to jail based on evidence given by those officers should be put on bail and their cases reviewed. Because if they are discredited based on these tests it means that we could have innocent people in the jail. So it’s only fair that every case which they may have won be challenged,” he said, but cautioned that the government should be careful about heading down their intended path.
Moreover, he said, he felt that President Bharrat Jagdeo’s assertions about the employer’s right to terminate the contract with our without the tests was an easy excuse for government. However, he said, he would condone the use of polygraph testing in law enforcement since it is a useful tool. And he insisted that not only CANU staff should be made to undergo lie detector testing.
Nine officers, including acting head Nedd, received letters last Thursday and Friday informing them that they had failed their polygraph tests and asking them to submit in writing the reason/s for this. This newspaper has since learnt that the officials have not provided satisfactory explanations and their termination of services is imminent.
A source close to the unit informed Stabroek News that the letters had stunned many of the recipients and some were pondering their next move after years of service seizing, incarcerating and prosecuting persons involved in the drug trade as going back into society may pose a challenge.
The source was concerned that many persons had risked a lot to bring drug traffickers to justice and argued that if anyone from the unit lost his/her job as a result of the tests, s/he should be properly compensated. “A man on that side of the drug trade is not a man who is safe because this whole thing involves risking your life and by extension risking the life of your family and so his movements would have to be very much curtailed so the issue now is one of proper compensation,” the source asserted.
Three airport staff, another man who is listed on the unit’s pay sheet but does not operate out of it, an intelligence officer, two investigative officers attached to the unit, another attached to the seaport and the acting CANU head, received the letters, the source said. CANU has approximately 45 staff members. However, some secretarial staff as well as security personnel were not made to do the tests as well as others who were on vacation leave, this newspaper was informed.
President Jagdeo had earlier asserted that those who failed the lie-detector test would have their service terminated. Government had defended the course of action on the basis of determining the integrity of persons employed at the unit. Jagdeo also said government was simply ensuring that the unit was one which it could rely on as the fight against drug trafficking continues.
He was also asked about the government’s preparation for any legal action against it in light of the dismissals and he responded that the unit’s employees were contract workers and the government reserved the right to terminate their services at any anytime.
