Although the security sector reform report which was handed over to Presi-dent David Granger more than a year ago is yet to be made public, British High Commissioner to Guyana Greg Quinn says that he is not worried as the process for implementation of its recommendations has started.
“He (UK security expert, Lt Col (ret’d) Russell Combe) has moved the recommendations from that forward to the point where we now have submitted internally to the government various implementation strategies in all of the areas he has talked about,” Quinn said.
Quinn told Stabroek News on Monday that Combe’s contract ends at the end of March, which was always the plan.
“[The] plan was always this would be ultimately a Guyanese-owned process. It wasn’t for us to do all of it, so I think now with Russ’ contract coming to a conclusion, we now have an opportunity for that to become the Guyanese owned process to move forward for implementation.”
Quinn added that the British government has seen good forward movement thus far and he himself is impressed with Combe’s work. “I know people always want to see quick, quick movement but some of the stuff is quite complicated and is not simple and I think that it is good that we have gone from …what do we need to do to… this is how we do it. So the next stage is let’s do it. That’s where we are now,” he said.
Pressed on the non-publication of the report, he said that the important thing is that “stuff is moving forward.” He said the report was always one that was going to the president and the Government of Guyana, which has to make decision about its release. He reminded of his previous “sitting on the shelf gathering dust” comments and said that the good thing in this instance is that things have moved on from the report. “So we’re in the right direction and the next stage is trying to implement some of the stuff,” he added.
Asked if there is room for extension of Combe’s contract, he said, “Never say never because originally Russ wasn’t meant to be here for this financial year, so I will never say never but at the minute he does not have a contact beyond the end of March.”
With regards to further collaboration in the area of security between the two governments, Quinn res-ponded in the positive. He said that his government is at the stage where it is looking at what may be possible beyond March 31st, when the next financial year starts.
“So we are now in the process of trying to figure that out. It has not been defined yet but the hope or the expectation is that there will be sort of SSR [security sector reform] work being done by us in the next financial year,” he said.
Combe handed over the report to Granger on January 18th last year.
Granger on numerous occasions had promised to release it. In September last year, the President told Stabroek News that he would soon furnish Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo with a copy of the report, following which it will be laid in the National Assembly.
At one point, the president had said that the report was with Cabinet.
Jagdeo has also questioned the secrecy surrounding the reform plan.
“You can’t reform the police force in secrecy. You have to have buy-in from everyone, including the opposition. So this decision to regionalise the force, I heard them say that before the report, is it part of the report and why and how is it going to function? So, it’s like they have made a decision,” he had said in March last year.
A copy of the report was seen by this newspaper last October. It identified poor forward planning and inadequate resources as major shortfalls in the Guyana Police Force and proposed the creation of seven working groups to deal with specific aspects of much-needed reform.
It is envisaged that these working groups would collaborate closely with the force’s Strategic Planning Unit to identify, construct and initiate action plans, while a Department for Security Sector Reform would be responsible for the implementation of all reform activities.
Combe in February this year handed over a new Guyana Police Force Strategic Plan to the newly formed Police Reform Change Board.
