Former police commissioner Winston Felix says that the negative comments about the work of the Guyana Police Force ought to be used “like a mirror” to improve the service to the public.
Felix, who is the Shadow Home Affairs Minister for A Partnership for National Unity (APNU), made the comment in response to statements by Home Affairs minister Clement Rohee at last week Thursday’s graduation ceremony for members of the Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) unit. Rohee, in his address, bashed media reportage on law enforcement, noting that most of it is negative and unjustified. He said that what is needed are recommendations that would move the force forward.
“The problem with Rohee is that he wants to make the force look good under circumstances where there is unprofessional behavior which is not accepted by the public and he is voicing opinions against those who criticise the force with no empathy for the public who suffer at the hand of the police,” Felix told Stabroek News. He said that the minister ought to use the criticisms “like a mirror for the force because it is the public who utilizes the service of the police and it is the public that must evaluate service.”
Felix noted that Rohee is not around when police are rude and display disrespectful behaviour to members of the public or brutalise them. “He is not there. He doesn’t see it.
He doesn’t hear it,” he said, while emphasising that such unprofessional behaviour will raise the ire of the public and criticisms will follow.
Commenting on the claims that SWAT is important and had it not been created the need for such a unit would have been questioned, Felix opined that the SWAT team is not an immediate need but at the same time “you can’t wait until there is an immediate need to have one.” He said that what he thought would have been a priority of this government was the need to train investigators in criminal investigations, crime scene management, traffic management and accident investigation and a whole array of skills, including public relations, to create avenues for better engagement with the public.
Irrespective of what response mechanisms the government puts in place for anticipated elevated crime situation, he said, human rights issues must run side by side with that training.
He stressed that previously the government was put on notice by the police that the organisation was losing its trained and skilled personnel through retirement and that there was a need to train those who remain so that eventually their experience would “build them up to take over.” Consequently, he said there were engagements with the British which resulted in the British identifying four million pounds for improvement of the force.
“It is for Rohee and the government to say why they did not embrace the agreements and allow the money which was available to us to go [to] waste. It is pointless talking about what would have happened when you have an opportunity years before to effect the training necessary to improve the performance of the Guyana Police Force,” he said.
