The needs assessment for the security sector, which is being conducted by British security expert Lt Col (rtd) Russell Combe, should be completed by year-end, according to Minister of Public Security Khemraj Ramjattan, who says that it is expected to both professionalise the police force and restore public confidence in its members.
In a recent interview with Sunday Stabroek, Ramjattan said Combe, who has been hired by the UK, is supposed to be in Guyana for a year. Combe arrived in Guyana in January and commenced his work almost immediately.
Ramjattan clarified that Combe’s work is focused on both the Guyana Police Force and the prison system.
Noting that Combe’s contract comes to an end in January, 2018, the minister said his work should be completed by the end of December, 2017. He said that the expert has already done some major work. He has assessed a number of units and departments within the police force and has started the process of sharing recommendations.
Ramjattan had told this newspaper a few weeks ago that the assessment will guide government on the priority areas and best institutional arrangements to ensure Guyana’s security sector is strengthened.
According to him, the needs assessment is expected to ascertain what might be the best approach to reforming the Guyana Police Force as well as other aspects of the ministry’s work.
He had said that once the work is completed, Combe will advise the ministry about what might be the best priorities to set and the best institutional arrangements to put in place for a better security sector in Guyana.
“It is a very comprehensive survey of all the organisations… that he is doing and he will advise afterwards but we need that kind of independent assessor and that is what is forthcoming from the security advisor… and I am hoping that we are going to have some really great recommendations, some very frank and full recommendations as to what ought to be done with a security sector that is by the way getting better,” he said, while also revealing that Combe has already visited a few regions and conducted interviews.
Asked whether they are specific areas being looked at, Ramjattan pointed out that he had identified some to Combe and is to provide a report. These areas, he said, he include the strengthening of the Strategic Planning Unit of the police force, the method used for promotions, pay scales, enhancing of the force’s image and catching rogue cops.
He also said that Combe has also visited some of the country’s prisons, including the facility at Mazaruni, where infrastructural work will soon begin.
The minister told Sunday Stabroek that once the assessment is completed, the UK will begin releasing funds for its security reform.
A previous £4.9M security reform project collapsed in 2009 following differences between the then PPP/C government and the United Kingdom. Then Cabinet Secretary Dr Roger Luncheon had said that the British proposal for the design and implementation of the project threatened Guyana’s sovereignty.
Months after taking office, President David Granger revealed that government had approached the British to have the rejected project back on the cards in the wake of the country’s ongoing battle with crime.
It was Minister of Foreign Affairs Carl Greenidge who revealed last Wednesday that Guyana could start receiving funding by year end for the security reform project. It would appear that this has been timed to coincide with the completion of the needs assessment.
“I believe that I am in order in saying, although the specifics are to be settled by the Office of the President and the advisor, that exercise will be completed before year-end, and there will be arrangements for some part of those funds to be disbursed before the end of the year,” Greenidge told a press conference.
Greenidge explained that on President Granger’s recent trip to the United Kingdom, discussions were continued with the relevant officials on the implementation of the security reform project.
The recent bilaterals, he said, were to “…secure those areas that they, even at that time, had identified as necessary for Guyana to secure external support, and which Britain was ready to provide….”
“So that security arrangement is to be re-activated and it was the mechanics of that that was under discussion,” he added.
Meanwhile, Ramjattan told Sunday Stabroek that a project of this kind is long overdue.
He said that if the project had been implemented under the previous administration, the police force would “have been better in its performance in all …areas.”
The minister asserted that such a project is a “useful thing” and will be beneficial not only to the force but the public. He said that the force will be a far more professional one, which will have the full confidence of the public. Such a relationship, he added, is an important thing. “You want the force to gain the confidence of the public. You don’t want the police to be seen as bullies and corrupt officers but as a partner and friend,” he stressed.
