Ramjattan has “crippled” community policing groups; PPP says crime situation is abominable
By Fareeza Haniff
[www.inewsguyana.com]– Former Minister of Home Affairs, Clement Rohee has taken Security Minister, Khemraj Ramjattan to task over Guyana’s crime situation, accusing him of “crippling” Community Policing Groups (CPGs).
Rohee, who is also General Secretary of the Opposition People’s Progressive Party (PPP), told a news conference on Monday, August 24 that the promise by the APNU+AFC government to improve CPGS in Guyana is a “total fallacy.”
According to Rohee, “In the 2015 Budget there is no provision under Capital for Community Policing Organization of Guyana. Contrary to what Ramjattan told the National Assembly that the vehicles seized from the CPGs and handed over to the police would be returned to the CPGs and that there is provision in the 2015 budget for additional vehicles. Ramjattan has actually crippled the CPGs.”
The former Home Affairs Minister noted that apart from taking away vehicles assigned to the CPGs, Ramjattan has dismissed a number of Liaison Officers and replaced them with AFC activists “who have tainted police records.”
He further noted that the Granger administration should come clean and let the Guyanese people know that they have “failed miserably in addressing crime in Guyana and that all the talk about a plan being ‘fine-tuned’ and that a “five point plan” was being implemented means nothing to the Guyanese people when every day of its 100 Days Action Plan crime is reeling out of control.”
In providing his statistics, it was noted that for the first hundred days of the APNU+AFC Coalition Government, there were 147 serious crimes including twenty-six (26) murders, five (5) attempted murders, thirty-nine (39) robbery under arms, eight (8) cases of seized firearms and twenty-one (21) possession of narcotics occurred.
“The situation has deteriorated to the extent where residents at the Corentyne, Berbice took to the streets to protest the lack of security and protection and called for the dismissal of Ramjattan as Public Security Minister. Many people see him as completely hopeless and unsuitable for the job,” Rohee said.
