It hardly raised any cynical Guyanese eyebrows when news came that SOCU has not been exercising its mandate in the way it was set up to do. It is just that this time the judgement took an official form, originating as it did from the second Money Laundering and Terrorist Financial National Risk Assessment report. SOCU was established in 2013 in response to this country’s international obligations in relation to Anti Money Laundering and Countering of Terrorism, and technically speaking is a unit of the Guyana Police Force. As such, it falls under the supervision of the Commissioner of Police, although there is no evidence that he exercises such supervision in any practical sense.
It would normally be expected that such a unit would be staffed largely by those with specialist skills in fields such as forensic auditing, financial crimes analysis and the like, but it seems there is a serious dearth of this kind of expertise in its ranks. The average Guyanese citizen probably views SOCU as more of a political instrument than anything else, and in this they would not be altogether mistaken. Much of what is known about it has come from its pursuit of members of the opposition in respect of land purchases, such as Pradoville when the coalition was in office, and acreage handled by former Minister Jordan in particular, under this government.
That the unit seems incapable of moving beyond the political context to operate within its remit is hardly surprising considering that the politicians themselves appear to regard its duties as having a different orientation. There was Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo complaining last year that “SOCU has just been a disappointment” because it had failed to charge several former government officials for the theft of state resources. He was quoted as going on to say, “Had it been the PPP, they [SOCU] would have been running us down.”
It might be mentioned that all cases involving land and former PPP/C officials brought by the coalition government were dropped when this one acceded to office. It is not that the public does not want to see matters concerning the theft of state assets dealt with, it is just that this has to be done even-handedly, and not contaminated with the stamp of political partisanship. In the meantime, of course, nothing much on the money-laundering front has been going on.
What has really given SOCU notoriety is not so much this as its brazen violation of the law, and the image it projects of being answerable to no one. One of its senior officers was clearly so autocratic by disposition not to mention ignorant of the law that he could order the detention of an attorney-at-law for advising her client on more than one occasion not to give a statement to the police. Even a traffic constable, one would have thought, would have known that this was unconstitutional, although not, it seems, a SOCU senior superintendent.
The incident provoked a plethora of condemnations from the local bar associations as well as those in the Caribbean and Commonwealth, while the attorney involved, Ms Tamieka Clarke has since initiated legal proceedings against the State. For its part the Bar Association has called on the Commis-sioner of Police to issue an apology to Ms Clarke; compensate her for her unlawful imprisonment; launch a full investigation into the matter with such necessary disciplinary action being swiftly enforced including charges being laid against the offending officer(s); and disciplinary action including termination of any officer(s) who were aware of and allowed this type of conduct.
True to form in such matters, but especially those involving SOCU, Commissioner Hickens has been deafening in his silence. The matter was passed to the Police Office of Professional Responsibility for an investigation which submitted its report to the DPP. Two days ago we reported that the DPP had returned the file to the police, so the public waits to find out what has been recommended and what action, if any, would be taken.
Fully berobed, some members of the Bar Association had taken briefly to the streets in protest over the incident, something which seems to have caused AG Anil Nandlall unrestrained aggravation which was further exacerbated by the condemnations from external associations and Ms Clarke’s legal suit against the State. Given his initial intervention to secure the attorney’s release from detention he considered the whole matter “water under the bridge”, and that all these subsequent events were evidence of an “aggressive agenda”.
Since that “aggressive agenda” concerns admonitions to observe the rule of law, and the AG is not committing himself to that, then it is certainly not “water under the bridge”. On the contrary, he needs some serious reflection on what constitutes our fundamental rights, no matter how brief he claims the time Ms Clarke was held for, or whatever the size of the sum for which she is suing the State. They are irrelevant to the matter of a major constitutional breach by a SOCU senior officer.
Whatever comes out of the advice from the DPP, we now know on an official basis that in addition to violating the law (and Attorney Clarke’s case was not the first time, albeit the most egregious), SOCU as mentioned above is also not doing what it is supposed to be doing. The National Risk Assessment report stated that although the unit had received 100 suspicious transaction reports which had a connection to money laundering between 2016 and 2020, it had investigated less than half of these. Even where there had been investigations there had been no convictions of money laundering crimes despite reports in the media about suspected criminal activities related to this. The problem, it went on to say, did not lie with the legislation which adequately provided for criminal sanctions.
The 100 suspicious transactions reports had come from the Financial Intelligence Unit, with which SOCU was intended to work closely. “Despite this large number of intelligence reports received, less than half were investigated, none resulted in prosecution or convictions and approximately 36 were not assigned for investigation as of the end of 2020,” the report stated.
The reasons cited for this deficiency were the expected ones, namely, a lack of human resources and insufficient evidence. Up until 2017 when the law changed, there was also the problem that money laundering offences had to be brought summarily and therefore within six months of the commission of the offence. The single case brought in 2020 related to a Ponzi scheme. Among the various other recommendations, the report pointed to the need for specialised training of law enforcement officers and the judiciary; the need for financial crimes analysts and special investigators for money laundering crimes and a greater collaboration between prosecutors and investigators on the elements of a crime.
Clearly this degree of technical knowledge and skill is well beyond the capabilities of a unit which operates as if it is out of control and seems unfamiliar with even the basic tenets of this country’s Constitution. If SOCU is to have any hope of fulfilling its mandate at some point in the future it either needs to be entirely restructured, or conversely disbanded and a more appropriate unit established in its place. Even as things stand some of its staff at a minimum should be transferred, and others dismissed.
In addition, it hardly needs emphasising that there is a critical need for specialised training in SOCU, as well as making it answerable, like other units of the GPF, to the police hierarchy. Most of all, it should not be under the direction or influence of any political forces. Stage One in the rehabilitation or recreation of SOCU will potentially begin after the DPP’s recommendations are revealed, and the action the police (and the political authorities) take thereafter. If they fail to act the unit will not change its character.
