Should the government decide to have foreign nationals fill senior positions in the Guyana Police Force it would indicate a lack of confidence and contribute to the low morale of police officers, former police commissioner Winston Felix said, adding that the force suffered tremendously when the UK-backed reform project was scrapped.
Felix, during an interview with Stabroek News, while noting that this has been done in both Jamaica and Trinidad, said he was not sure it is a path Guyana should take.
Both Jamaica and Trinidad are now plagued by worsening criminal activities and Felix said he was not sure how beneficial the infusion of senior foreign officers into leadership of those forces has been.
“I think it would be a sad day in Guyana were that to ever happen,” Felix said adding that for the force to become professional, more needs to be invested in training.
“What I do know, regardless of who you bring, if they have to work under the same conditions as the locals they would go away, they would return [home]. You cannot bring any foreign officer here to be directed by the Ministry of Home Affairs; the Ministry of Home Affairs sets policies, while the command of the force belongs to the commissioner,” Felix said.
He said the commissioner must have the authority to enable him to perform his duties. “He must have the responsibility. He must have the authority. He must have both. You can’t give him in one hand and then take back in the other hand.”
He told Stabroek News that this was what the government attempted to do with him when he became commissioner but he “stoutly resisted”.
Felix also questioned what a foreign national would be paid if brought to work in Guyana, noting that if that person were paid according to foreign standards, this “would affect morale in the force”.
Meanwhile, Felix said training is integral part if the force is to become a professional force and this must be given from the level of young policemen right up to senior police officers.
“Training is extremely essential from recruitment, in service and at the officers’ level. Training locally as well as overseas training because training for law enforcement officers has been evolving over time out of Guyana and we need to benefit from that.”
He pointed out that criminal investigation training is developing everyday and there is a need for police officers to be trained in forensics to ensure that there is added skill in crime detection. There is the need, he said, for equipment for ballistics examination adding that “with the number of firearm crimes that we have you need ballistics examination that would match expended ammunition and casings with a particular firearm.”
According to Felix, these are essential aids for criminal examination coupled with well trained finger print examiners, well trained investigators and crime scene examiners.
“All these put together would aid in the strengthening of the investigative capacity of the police force. A professional police force needs to depend on intelligence gathering… [which] is required to aid investigators to develop information on criminals and criminal activity; they can’t work without a strong crime intelligence unit.”
And Felix said strong intelligence gathering units should not be limited to Georgetown but should be in all the divisions so that the force’s operation would be driven by intelligence information. He said in the absence of this the force’s ability to detect crime and investigate crime will continue to be hampered.
“Within the institution of the Guyana Police Force its crime intelligence capabilities ought to be developed under the hands of the Commissioner of Police, not under the hand of the Minister of Home Affairs or someone else,” Felix said.
He once again stressed that for the force to be successful it must be respected by the public who must be willing to work with the force.
Suffered
Felix said the force suffered severely with the scrapping of the 4.9 million pounds sterling security sector reform project with the United Kingdom (UK) in October 2009.
Felix told Stabroek News that there are no better countries than the UK, US and Canada for the force to access training and other forms of assistance from. He pointed out that officers from polices forces from around the world attend institutions in those three countries.
The five main elements of the scrapped plan covered building the operational capacity of the police force; strengthening policy-making across the security sector to make it more transparent, effective, and better coordinated; mainstreaming financial management in the security sector into public sector financial management reform; creating substantial parliamentary and other oversight of the security sector; and building greater public participation and inclusiveness in security sector issues. The plan was specifically designed to complement the then ongoing IDB Citizen Security and Justice Reform programmes, in a bid to tackle crime and security in a holistic manner.
Felix said that UK’s help to the force dates back to the late nineties when there was mounting criminal activities and an outcry by the public about the force’s ability to effectively fight crime–something that is still happening. He mentioned the Simmons report, which resulted in a number of recommendations.
Following this a number of officers, including Felix, were sent to the UK for training with the view of identifying a successor for the then Commissioner Laurie Lewis. It was following that training, Felix said, that a 2001 recommendation was made for him to take over from Lewis.
Pointing to the government’s reluctance since then to truly make the partnership between the two countries successful, Felix said that following the training in the UK, they came up with a strategic plan copies of which were handed to then commissioner Floyd Mc Donald and Minister of Home Affairs, but they never heard a word of the plan after that.
After he became commissioner, Felix, in keeping with the strategic plan, ensured there were local training programmes for ranks done by personnel from the UK including training in media relations, criminal investigation and public order. He said there were other areas of training to be continued but, “I don’t know what went wrong… the government soon got cold feet with that programme and apparently never created the environment for those trainings to continue.”
