President David Granger has full confidence that the government’s gun amnesty, which is to begin next month, will be successful and he also expects that the police force will be able to reduce the crime rate by the end of the year.
Speaking to Stabroek News on Wednesday after the presentation of the Burnham Education Scholarship Trust (B.E.S.T) bursary awards, President Granger voiced his confidence about the amnesty.
“It is our view that persons who feel themselves threatened by others who have illegal guns are going to report them and persons who are in possession of illegal guns have no reason to be fearful and could hand in their guns,” Granger said, while noting that he believes the programme, which has been tried in other countries, will be successful here.
Granger said the aim of the programme is to move a large amount of illegal guns off the streets and give the people an opportunity to deal with it legally. He further stated that after the one-month trial for the programme, there will be a big crackdown and persons who are found in possession of illegal firearms will face the full brunt of the law.
In 2007, Granger had said in an interview with Stabroek News that he was not in favour of a gun amnesty as he felt it would not work in Guyana. He argued then that there had to be two approaches to tackling gun smuggling. The first was strong intelligence – identifying the source of the weapons, who were the traffickers (gun-runners), the various networks, and how the weapons were being trafficked and distributed—and the second was enforcement of the laws.
Meanwhile, Granger stated that he has full confidence that the police force will make a positive dent in the crime rate by the end of the year.
“…There is a need to strengthen the investigative section, particularly the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), strengthen the police force, [and] ensure there is better reporting in high incidence areas with serious crimes, such as murder and rape,” Granger said, while explaining that the force has to be brought up to strength, which would require that they should be paid better, re-trained, and given better equipment.
“We feel that we are competent and as I said certain measures are going to be put in place. We need to give the police the resources, the physical assets which are needed,” he added. He stated that the government has already put short term measures in place, such as having coastal aerial patrols to assist in suppressing piracy as well as outfitting the police force with vehicles that were originally intended for community policing group.
While a crime fighting strategy was supposed to be discussed at Cabinet on Tuesday, Granger stated that there will be immediate short term plans to tackle the crime rate and in the new year there will be a long term plan.
