After a hiatus of some 12 years, the Guyana Police Force recently held an Inspectors and Sergeants conference at the Police Officers Mess Annexe in Eve Leary, Georgetown with Acting Commissioner of Police Clifton Hicken underscoring their role in the force as the middle management and them having the right attitude and mindset.
According to a Guyana Police Force (GPF) release on Saturday, the just-concluded conference “set the tone” for middle management in the force.
Hicken, in his remarks on the opening day, highlighted the importance of the Inspectors and Sergeants Conference, which is to have the entire force moving in one direction. He noted that it was not about the middle managers coming to confirm their roles and responsibilities but identifying deficiencies and how to fill those voids.
“In an effort to have the entire Guyana Police Force moving in one direction, it was necessary for the realisation of this conference. But this conference isn’t only going to be [about] presentations, group dynamics, identifying, confirmation of your roles and responsibilities but you are going to be managed by a cadre of commanders with the requisite competence; they are going to listen to the views, understand the strengths and weaknesses, [and] where we need development,” he said.
Hicken also told the hundreds of inspectors and sergeants that all they learn during the conference must not be noticed by their superiors but by the citizens whom they serve.
“You are going to work harder than you have worked before. We are going to transform you during these [three] days and when you get back to the stations, the public [whom] you serve, they must see a difference in how things are being done,” he cautioned.
Minister of Home Affairs Robeson Benn, who addressed the conference, spoke on the government’s role in aiding the force’s Strategic Plan 2022-2026, which he said is geared at transforming the GPF into a more “contemporary” one through the development of its human resources and their capabilities. The minister reminded the gathering of over 700 middle managers that it will all be in vain if they do not possess the right attitude and mindset.
“There’s a lot of things going for contemporary policing interventions in relation to information technology and in particular, training, but it will all go to naught if you have the physical assets and the vehicles and the best legally trained and other trained managers… nothing matters if at the middle level, the purpose, the willingness, the activity, and the direction do not integrate [with] what has to happen at the bottom in terms of actions to guarantee security.”
The three days of the conference saw a number of intense and excellent presentations by members of the force as well as other individuals, and covered several pertinent areas and topics of discussion, the release added.
