The staff of the Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit (CANU) is going to be more than doubled as part of an organisational restructuring planned to boost its effectiveness, Head of the Presidential Secretariat Dr. Roger Luncheon announced on Friday.
Luncheon told a post-Cabinet press briefing that Cabinet agreed to the design of the CANU restructuring, which would see a revised organisational structure, additional staffing to more than double CANU’s current size, and salaries commensurate with tenureship and job descriptions.
“The reform initiative logically follows under current interventions and it recognises the many contributions made by CANU to law enforcement in Guyana and specifically its functioning in the field of investigations, prosecutions and international collaboration in anti-narco trafficking,” he explained.
“The reform initiative addresses the following: a revised organogram; one that responds to the tasks, the functions of investigations, prosecutions and international collaboration in the fight against narco trafficking… with an inventory of organised positions, fifty of which are authorised in the first instance. The current strength of CANU would be more than doubled by this reform initiative at its completion. The second aspect is the approval of the job descriptions, the job specifications, that are applied, will be applied, to those inventories of organised authorised positions,” he added.
Stabroek News was told that while the agency will undergo staffing changes, James Singh will remain its head.
This newspaper also understands that the move to revamp CANU is being undertaken to coincide with the impending establishment of a United States Drug Enforcement Adminis-tration (DEA) office here.
In June of this year, Georgetown and Washington announced the establishment of the DEA office, which will be stationed at the Embassy in Duke Street, Kingston but will see other units working at a facility to be determined by government.
Luncheon opined that the move would be profound. “The impact of the restructuring and reform of CANU, we anticipate, would be profound. The Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit has made significant inroads into narco trafficking in Guyana and this is an extremely incisive and timely intervention,” he said.
