Over 200 Berbicians put in their applications last week in the hopes of joining the Guyana Police Force.
The force held a three-day drive in Skeldon, Central Corentyne, and New Amsterdam in Region Six. Deputy Commissioner of Police, Calvin Brutus said that they have received over 200 fresh applications. According to him, they are looking to train some 700 persons to fill the current gap with the force also looking to open their air wing.
He added that another 26 persons who had applied previously also visited the drive in New Amsterdam to check on the status of their applications.
Brutus, who was on the ground for all three of the drives in the region, told Stabroek News that they are setting out to fill the vacancies as they are “expanding as an organization” with the establishment of new departments to “treat with the contemporary issues on the security landscape. New police stations and outposts have been established too so those require additional human resources and other resources.”
According to Brutus, there is already a proposal out to open the air wing for the Guyana Police Force.
A visit to the New Amsterdam drive showed that the force had put in every effort to make the process an easy one for first-time applicants as they were assisted with having their photographs taken, forms filled, photocopying of documents, and in some instances even the process to apply for a birth certificate.
According to the Deputy Commissioner, the drive was necessary at this stage as they discovered that persons with pending applications had already secured employment elsewhere. “We can’t expect persons to be waiting on an application to be processed for three years and they are in need of a job.”
Some persons who answered the call have already been sworn to train at the main facility in Georgetown, he said. However, after discussions with other applicants and their relatives they discovered that a lot of the miscellaneous costs pose a challenge to them to get from far-flung regions to the Georgetown location several times to participate in the various stages of the process. As such they embarked on the recruitment drive.
“And that’s why we are out here too to remove that transportation costs, meals, and other miscellaneous costs for them, and we as an organization would bear that expense”, Brutus said.
Applicants will also have to pass a background check before being selected for training.
He explained that one of the force’s policies which is being embarked on is the “harmonization of all the persons in our society, and we want the Guyana Police Force to have a true reflection of the make-up of our society and that’s why we are going out to all the persons from those geographical locations across Guyana so that we can get persons from the different demographics within our society…”
He then pointed out, that a lot of members of the force currently were drawn from the coastland particularly Berbice, some from Linden and central Georgetown. However, he said this is a result of access to those persons being easier in comparison to persons from far-flung areas.
As such, the recruitment drive will also be taken to the interior regions since they understand that it might be difficult for persons residing in those “far out” areas to access their recruitment centre in the city.
Touching on some of the improvements being made for trainees and members of the force, Brutus said, “We are in the process of accrediting the Felix Austin Police College. We are also doing renovations to the barrack rooms and classrooms.”
Presently, there is the capacity to train two batches of applicants in Berbice.
Brutus pointed out that female applicants in the past had to undergo training in Georgetown but they are looking at completing some renovations to create facilities to train females within the region.
“We are hoping that within the next few weeks we can remodel one of the buildings at Adventure (Corentyne) to have all the necessary infrastructure in place and personnel to train at least a batch of females here too and also at Essequibo, so we want to have everything that we offer in Georgetown at the other two facilities.”
He then pointed out that they have already put into policy the separation of utensils used to prepare meals in keeping with the three religions. “Eating peculiarities will be taken into consideration as well”, he said.
Benefits
Touching on benefits that come with becoming a member of the GPF, Brutus said, that in addition to receiving a salary, meals are provided along with medical health insurance.
He said, that in addition to general training applicants will also have to select a language from Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, French and Mandarin during their training, “By the time they graduate at six months they should be at the elementary level and then it’s the other part to continue onward that we will facilitate them to do the advanced level”.
After graduating, Brutus said that there are also pathways to other academic developments. According to him, they are already sponsoring students to do law, information technology – computer science, sociology – social work, psychology, public communication, public management, civil engineering, mechanical engineering, and aeronautical engineering as well.
