When fire-fighters who were among the first responders to the recent emergency landing of an airplane at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport, Timehri were accused of stealing personal property of the passengers and crew, the condemnation was swift in coming from the Cabinet and the National Security Council. According to a statement put out by the government, “Cabinet strongly condemned as criminal and morally corrupt those alleged acts of theft and urged that the perpetrators be brought to swift justice.”
Ironically perhaps, it is the Guyana Police Force (GPF), itself beset by numerous concerns about its own propensities towards corruption that is responsible for the investigation. Indeed, it wasn’t too long ago when, in looking for an appropriate choice for Commissioner of Police, President Granger intimated that he was looking for someone “unbribable” – a thinly veiled reference to the GPF’s corruption allegation woes. And when one considers the comments by the Minister of Public Security bemoaning the apparent complicity of officers of the Guyana Prison Service (GPS) in illegalities in the prison system, the alleged behaviour of the officers of the Guyana Fire Service (GFS) is suddenly brought into sharp context representing a culture of corruption and lawlessness that has eroded the ethical foundation of many institutions in Guyana, with government-run institutions being most vulnerable.
The allegations against the fire-fighters remain just allegations at the time of writing, but the seriousness of the situation requires some careful reflection. When those responsible for the securing of life and property act against their core purpose they essentially become the enemy that they are supposed to be fighting. This is a terrible dilemma and leaves those dependent on the assistance to save life and property in a quandary if they see the advancing crew more as looters rather than the saviours they are supposed to be. Needless to say, this creates a breakdown in the system of law and order if citizens begin to reject the authority of those charged with maintaining law and order.
This means that at a very fundamental level the government must move past knee jerk reactions to the seemingly unthinkable acts by members of its disciplined services and begin to craft a strategy to deal with these issues in a sensible fashion. If we assume that those in charge are persons of greater mettle and moral fortitude than those that they rightly criticise, then we should expect that a sterling effort would be made to remedy the situation. We should also expect that the corrective action would be based on a realization that the lawlessness in the disciplined services appears to be deeply entrenched and cannot be seen as separate from the general malady of corruption wreaking havoc on institutions and individuals here in Guyana.
It is usual for persons in authority to bemoan the upbringing of young people coming into employment generally, and in this case where our focus is on the disciplined services. However, most private institutions of a certain calibre know that unless the culture of the organisation is clearly represented to new employees, the intended or hoped for organisational culture can be overtaken by the collective culture of the employees themselves.
In disciplined services organisations such as the GPF, GFS, GPS, or GDF, it is the responsibility of the organisation to impart in the new recruit the guiding principles of the organisation and to instil in the heart and mind of the recruit all the core beliefs and ideologies of the organisation. Failing to do this is to encourage a free for all and to court disaster, yet we are seeing young members of the disciplined forces sharing postings on Facebook as if they were a member of some violent money-hungry gang. This kind of mental state of many of the members of the disciplined forces show that they have taken their western style, Hollywood movie-acquired “get rich quick” syndrome into their jobs and there appears to be no successful countervailing, sensible, professional indoctrination into the force stressing the importance of “purpose” and the fulfilment that comes from executing one’s purpose credibly.
In the laissez-faire environment that seems to have replaced the environment based on discipline, training and motivation that should have obtained, it is perhaps no surprise that the culture of lawlessness is now spreading like a virus across the disciplined services. Indeed, if one is to judge from the reports of the Auditor General over the years, corruption and lawlessness has seemingly spread everywhere within many of the state-run institutions. Indeed, if we liken corruption to a virus we know that a virus always seeks out the most suitable host and exploits the host’s weaknesses in replicating itself. Officers of the disciplined services who work in an environment of low wages, low morale and self-esteem, with neither discipline nor direction guiding their actions are always going to be prone to lawless and corrupt behaviour. The fire-fighters who allegedly stole from the crash-landed plane are probably in this category of employees.
The solution to this level of ingrained lawlessness is never going to be easily or swiftly achieved. However, there must be a clear-headed start to making the disciplined services disciplined again. Simply lopping off the head does not work with a virus, although punishment must flow from the investigations underway with the allegations of theft against the fire-fighters. Surgical removal of infected parts is both painful and ineffective as the virus may move to other yet un-infected parts.
The virus of corruption and lawlessness must therefore be starved to death. The environment in which it flourishes: joblessness, low wages, indiscipline, waywardness, directionless leadership and much more, must be replaced with an environment in which this virus cannot survive.