It is too early to see the results of the measures government has put in place to fight crime, President David Granger said yesterday, while adding that overtures made to the UK will soon see a fresh approach to security sector reform.
“So there have been small incremental changes and I do regret that the media frenzy seems to have bowled people over. They feel that things are getting worse, but things are actually getting better,” Granger said during a recording of “the Public Interest”.
The parliamentary opposition PPP/C and some business entities have criticised the government over what appears to be an escalation in crime. This is the second time since taking office that the Granger-led government is faced with such a situation.
Last year, the President convened a high-level security meeting and later a five-part security strategy was announced and subsequently the joint services’ anti-crime initiative, dubbed ‘Operation Dragnet,’ was launched.
Granger said that the security measures the government has introduced over the last seven months are supplementing Operation Dragnet which will continue at least to June 1st.
Critics have pointed out that the security operation has failed to keep criminals at bay and reassure the public that they are safe and that security is at the top of the law enforcement authorities’ agenda.
Asked what assurances can be given that the crime situation is under control and that citizens are safe, Granger said, “The figures are coming down. There has been a media frenzy.”
He was referring to the quarterly statistics released by the force earlier this week, which show a 19% decrease in crime when compared with the same period last year.
The President pointed out that some the crimes which have been publicised in the media are not preventable by the state. Using examples of hitmen being hired, Granger said, “These are interpersonal disputes which the state cannot be held responsible for, so we have to disaggregate the crimes that we have been talking about.”
He stated that in the case of a security guard permitting someone to enter a premises to conduct a robbery, “it is difficult to blame the state and say what is the state doing about it.”
Granger stressed that there has been a reduction in the number of crimes and government has implemented measures countrywide, including in the hinterland. He said that the Commander in charge of the hinterland region, which is the largest police division, now lives and works in Bartica as opposed to being based in Georgetown.
He spoke of an increase in the number of mounted patrols in the Rupununi. He said government wants to augment the strength of the police force, which is 20% below its required capacity at the moment, as well as to boost the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) with better-trained detectives.
“Even our critics have accepted that crimes are being solved more quickly than ever before,” he said. He added that government has embarked on aerial patrol of the coastland and pointed out that there have been no recent piracy attacks.
Asked about the forensic capability of the force in the crime fight, Granger said that while the government is not satisfied with what exists, Minister of Public Security Khemraj Ramjattan is working to have the Forensic Laboratory operationalised.
“We have been in office for eleven months and we have inherited a certain situation throughout the security sector and it has affected what is happening in the prisons; it has affected what is happening in our ability to investigate crimes,” he said.
Granger reminded of the long period of intense violence during the previous administration that had gripped Guyana, during which hundreds of persons were killed. “Many of youngsters who witnessed those crimes in the early 2000—the era of the massacres—have now grown up… There is what I now call a secondary impact that many of those crimes were never investigated by the past administration,” he said.
Pointing out that many are still unsolved, Granger informed that relatives of the late Satyadeow Sawh, a former minister of agriculture in the PPP government who was assassinated along with several of his family members, have approached him to have the crime investigated. Even while the PPP/C was in power, relatives had called for a wide probe into the circumstances of this crime but their pleas fell on deaf ears.
“We must not assume that this crime situation suddenly came on the scene on the 16th of May 2015. It has been going on for a very long time and we are now seeing the impact of those lawless years when we have phantom gangs and rogue cops and people bringing in computer equipment and drug traffickers going about this country as if they were law enforcement themselves,” Granger said.
He said that there are some who seem to believe the events of that period did not have an impact. “They have had a very serious impact and all of us are suffering from that impact now… Yes we are doing a lot …for the whole redeployment of the Police Force, the training of CID,” he stressed.
He pointed out during a meeting last September at the United Nations involving Caricom heads, he had asked British Prime Minister David Cameron for the Security Sector Master Plan to be reintroduced. He has also approached British High Commissioner Greg Quinn on the same issue.
“There is going to be a fresh approach to security sector reform,” he said.
He stressed that things are being done but it is too early to see the results. “We are working to put all of these measures in place. It has been a short time,” he said.
At Wednesday’s sitting of the National Assembly, former home affairs minister Clement Rohee tabled a motion which fueled a heated discussion on the present crime situation in the country. Rohee had argued that there have been talk and ideas but no action since the new government took office.
He said Guyanese are not interested in the publication of statistics but rather want to be protected and be assured that when crimes are committed law enforcement arrives promptly on the scene.
He called out Ramjattan for failing to install cameras across the city, while adding that in the interim people are dying and being made to suffer at the hands of criminals.
He also made mention of Operation Dragnet, which he said has “been a total disaster…it is a horrible initiative.” He argued that it clearly has not yielded any results.
Ramjattan, in his response, told the National Assembly that the government is very concerned about the crime situation and is doing everything it can to deal with it. “We are doing all that is possible, all that can be done in the circumstances and we are having tremendous results,” he said.
