A British consultancy company has won the tender to provide the necessary services to carry out certain reforms within the Guyana Police Force, Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee has said.
Rohee, responding to questions during a press conference last Friday, said the members of the consultancy company will soon be meeting with the leadership of the Guyana Police Force to discuss what is going to be done.
He said money provided under Inter American Development Bank (IDB)/Government of Guyana Citizens Security Programme will be used to fund this project.
Asked what sections will be given priority, Rohee said training and the modernization of the force “from different angles”.
The government in 2009 confirmed that a £4.9 million security sector reform project with the UK had collapsed following differences between the two countries.
At the time, the government was responding to a BBC report on the issue.
In a statement the Office of the President (OP) linked the collapse of the project to the denial of a UK request for a live firing exercise in the west of Guyana.
“This decision by the UK Government is believed to be linked to the administration’s refusal to permit training of British Special Forces in Guyana using live firing in a hinterland community on the western border with Brazil and Venezuela,” the OP statement said.
Observers noted, however, that the project had been in serious trouble earlier after Guyana objected to certain preconditions which were thought to include the stationing of overseas law enforcement professionals in the police force here.
The dispute had sparked sharp statements from Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr Roger Luncheon, who had responsibility for the project, and the then British High Commissioner here, Fraser Wheeler. Luncheon went as far as offering his resignation to the President over the dispute.
