Head of the United Minibus Union (UMU) Eon Andrews says that the Guyana Police Force (GPF) needs to do more to curb petty crime being carried out in minibuses and around the city bus parks.
Addressing concerns about persons being robbed in minibuses, Andrews told Stabroek News yesterday that the GPF could have plain clothes ranks patrolling the parks as well as sitting in buses to catch persons who assault and terrorise citizens.
“There seems to be an army of youngsters between the ages of 15 and 19 that turn up around these parks as touts and at the same time among them they are carrying out robberies, especially for cellular phones. And we could probably do a citizen’s arrest but these people today are armed and there are a lot of police patrols passing but that isn’t helping the situation. What is needed is that they should have young plain clothes police mingling between them, those who are not corruptible,” Andrews explained.
He also said there is a need for a stronger presence by the City Constabulary at the parks.
Andrews further said that bus owners need to do adequate background checks to ensure that the operators they employ are safe. He noted that some operators have been complicit in robberies.
“You have also criminal elements who are driving the buses and are complicit with these youngsters. These robberies and those kind of acts is really police matters but what we recognised also is that there are a lot of youngers with conductor licences and I don’t know how they got it in the first place and the code of conduct should take care of that,” Andrews explained, while referring to a code being drafted for operators.
