https://citizensreportgy.com/?p=13274
Prior to taking office in 2015 the APNU+AFC Coalition boasted of having several former law enforcement officials among its ranks and promised a solution to crime in Guyana. In over four years since, crime has escalated, as evidenced in daily media reports.
The APNU+AFC Coalition – touting its many security experts, ex-military officials, etc. – had promised: To confront serious crime; to “end crime that is bleeding the lives and bodies of our women and youths and scaring away investors”; the establishment of a Crime Task Force; to develop “innovative strategies to enhance and support current police efforts to better serve the security needs of Guyana. APNU+AFC, with the help of friendly foreign agencies like the FBI, Scotland Yard and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, will provide leadership and support to the Joint Services to further develop the nation’s capacity to prevent and control crime”; and to implement a “national crime and security policy”. None of this has been done.
In comments on a recorded programme that was broadcast on Sunday (October 27, 2019), the APNU+ AFC Coalition leader, David Granger, declared, “The crime situation is not as bad as some people make it out to be.” It must be noted that crime statistics, which were routinely released by the Guyana Police Force, have not been released since June 2018. Refusing to address the increase in violent crimes, Granger opted to talk about incidents of inter-personal violence, saying, “Certain types of interpersonal violence need different tools maybe their social, maybe their cultural, maybe their community. But the police may very well not have the tools to deal with that type of interpersonal violence… we have to examine the culture of young people, what takes place in schools, we have to embrace you know civil society, we have to encourage the churches, the mandirs, the masjids to deal with these issues…it is not an ethnic problem, it is not a geographical problem. It is widespread.”
Granger, however, did admit that there is a nexus between levels of unemployment and crime. “The presumption is that once people are working steadily and they have good incomes that they would be less inclined to the crime….we hope economic incentives, a strong economic platform, would allow more young people to enter the world of work and not the world of crime,” he said, failing to address his government’s failures to create new jobs for Guyanese youths.
Exacerbating his failure to address the latter, Granger said, “Sometimes very rich criminals you know commit offenses.” When pressed on his crime plan, Granger said, “All of these crimes I am very confident are in the hands of a very competent police Commissioner…for the first time in a long time we have four deputy commissioners who have the areas of responsibility.” Granger also attempted to excuse the failures of his Coalition in tackling crime by blaming the former administration. He said, “Some people do not understand that violence was embedded almost in relations during first decade of this century (2000 to 2010)…we have to move away from that.”
On the question of what he had dubbed a ‘plan to end all crime’, Granger said, “We now have a program of security sector reform with the assistance of the British government, which is being implemented and these changes will take time.” However, the details of this security reform programme remains secret. On January 18, 2018, Granger accepted the Report of the Security Sector Reform Project (SSRP), which was presented to him by United Kingdom’s Security Reform Programme Senior Advisor, Colonel Russell Combe. But there has been no official move to operationalise the plan – even as the APNU+AFC Coalition Government comes in for blows over the current crime situation.
This is despite the fact that Granger himself admitted to need to roll out measures to address the crime sitation. Earlier this year, he had said. “We are deeply concerned about the security situation and the sooner we implement those reforms, I think, the better,” he had said.
