The validity of official assertions targeting potential investors that Guyana is “open for business” cannot be sustained in circumstances where, so often, the authorities demonstrate “a lack of capacity to protect the local business community from vicious criminal attacks,” Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) President Clinton Urling says. Responding to a question put to him by the Stabroek Business, Urling said that we delude ourselves “if we immagine for one moment that the perception that the prívate sector is uniquely vulnerable to criminal attacks does not result in diminished investor confidence in the local business climate.”
A series of violent robberies on Monday targeting a Rubis filling station, a popular auto dealer and a shop in Guyhoc Park prompted a strongly worded release from the chamber. Apart from asserting that the chamber was “alarmed and unsettled” over the number of robberies directed at city business houses, the release called for the Guyana Police Force (GPF) to initiate a vigorous and effective response “by implementing measures to apprehend those perpetrating these heinous crimes.”
In its release the chamber also called for
the dedication of “additional security resources” to respond to the current spate of robberies. Meanwhile, the GCCI statement also urged businesses “to consider the use of private security services.”
In his interview Urling also told Stabroek Business that the chamber was seeking to bring together companies offering security-related IT solutions and local business houses so that the latter could better understand the value of the various electronic solutions that are available in Guyana.
Urling said that last Monday’s robberies appeared to suggest that we may once again be in the midst of that “ebb and flow” of criminal attacks “to which we have grown accostomed.” He said that a point had long been reached where the Guyana Police Force (GPF) “ought to be able to fashion a security plan that serves as a deterrent or at least a viable response to these periodic crime sprees.”
And according to Urling, while there was no expectation that the police could be everywhere at the same time, “quicker police responses and investigations that yield earlier results as far as apprehending the criminals is concerned would go a far way towards enhancing the business community’s confidence in the force.”
Urling, meanwhile, told Stabroek Business that the chamber’s August 13 security seminar which he said had been planned ahead of the recent spate of armed robberies was designed to “bring together the stakeholders with an interest in shaping an effective response to the crime wave that appeared to be targeting the business sector. He said the forum was seeking to attract business houses, security companies, representatives of the electronic security companies and the GPF.
“We have written to the Guyana Police Force about the forum but up until now we have had no response. That concerns us because we specifically want the police force, ideally the Commissioner of Police, to be there to share with us the force’s plan for protecting the business sector.”
Urling said that while the business community was entitled to look to the police to plan and execute a strategy to respond to criminal attacks targeting them, the GCCI did not want it to appear as though all of the blame for the failings of law enforcement could be placed at the door of the police. “What we recognise is that the weaknesses of the force are, in some respects, a function of the painfully slow pace of instituting reforms…. Issues of training, manpower, supporting resources and a technology-driven policing regime are likely to go a far way towards effectively tackling the crime situation. These issues, however, are not going to be settled unless we deal with the matter of police reform,” Urling said.
Meanwhile, the head of an electronic security entity who declined to be named, told Stabroek Business that what was particularly disturbing was the fact that the robberies had taken place during the trading day, a development which suggested that the robbers appeared to factor in “a low likelihood” of being apprehended. “In the case of the robbery at the Rubis Gas Station of Vlissengen Road we have to ask ourselves whether the state-financed security cameras mounted just outside the gas station ought not to have put the police in a position to come up with some visual details of that robbery by this time,” the businessman said.
