The opposition's campaign to make the country ungovernable has seen limited success as we see certain crimes are up while murders are down.

Police report five per cent increase in serious crimes …drop in murders, increase in road deaths, armed robberies

…16 domestic deaths, 85 road fatalities GUYANA has seen an overall increase in serious crimes for the period ending January 1 to October 31, 2013, compared with the corresponding period in 2012.The Guyana Police Force in statistics released Monday stated that 3,350 serious crimes were reported between January 1 and October 31, 2013 while for 2012 there were 33,201 serious crime reports. The statistics were arrived at by the monitoring of the following offences: murder, robbery under arms, robbery with violence, larceny from the person, break and enter and larceny, burglary, rape and kidnapping. The total number of murders for the 2013 period has been recorded at 108, compared to 115 for the corresponding period, which represents a 6 per cent decrease, according to the police. Of the murders recorded for this year, 47 were considered disorderly; 20 were committed during armed robberies; two were execution style and 16 were domestic-related, while the remaining 23 have been undetermined. With 921 reports of robbery under arms for 2013 compared to 858 for the corresponding period in 2012, this offence has seen an increase of seven per cent. Meanwhile, within that figure there has been a 16 per cent increase in the number of armed robberies involving the use of firearms and a 6 per cent decrease in armed robberies in which instruments other than a firearm were used by the perpetrators. The police have also given statistics in relation to the traffic situation for the period January 1 to October 31, 2013. There has been a decrease of five per cent in the number of road deaths. Last year saw 83 accidents and 90 deaths while for 2013 there have been 79 accidents with 85 deaths. There was also a reduction in other categories of traffic accidents, including serious, minor and damage accidents. Meanwhile, pedestrians were again listed as the main road users affected by accidents with 29 persons losing their lives. In addition 14 motor cyclists; 12 pedal cyclists; 12 drivers of motor vehicles; two pillion riders and 16 passengers of motor vehicles also lost their lives.

(By Leroy Smith)

SPEEDING The police also stated that speeding continues to be a contributing factor to fatal accidents and was the cause of 55 of the 79 fatal accidents recorded from January to October 2013.

Traffic enforcement by the police during the period January to October 2013 resulted in a total of 72,216 cases being made against errant motorists and of this total, 18, 810 cases were for speeding.