The public is being invited to give their views on the National Drug Strategy Master Plan 2013 – 2017 next week Tuesday at the Umana Yana.
This invitation was extended in an ad published in yesterday’s Sunday Chronicle. The draft Inception Report says that the Government of Guyana is in the process of formulating a new National Drug Strategy Master Plan (NDSMP) for 2013- 2017. The last National Drug Strategy Master Plan (2005 – 2009) has expired. As of September 2010, thirty- three of the thirty- six programmes of the last Plan had been implemented; eighteen had been completed while fifteen were on-going and yet to be completed. Three had not started, the report noted.
Last September, Minister of Home Affairs Clement Rohee announced that a new drug strategy master plan was being crafted.
PPP/C governments have played up drug master plans since 1992, but critics such as current Opposition Leader David Granger have derided them for not accomplishing anything and being underfunded and under resourced. Other critics have also said that the purported drug master plans have had no impact on the reign of drug lords such as Roger Khan who carried out operations unimpeded and was alleged to have aided the government in its crime fighting. It was the US which apprehended Khan in Trinidad. He is now in jail in the US.
