As soon as the debate on the budget is completed and the estimates approved, two parliamentary special select committees will meet to review the Security Sector Reform Action Plan (SSRAP) and to conclude the examination of the Disciplined Forces Commission (DFC) report.

These committees were expected to have met earlier considering the importance of the security issues they were meant to address.

Meanwhile, Stabroek News understands that British High Commissioner to Guyana, William Fraser Wheeler in a letter dated February 27, 2008 to Prime Minister Hinds, who chairs the select committees, indicated his availability to brief the Select Committee about recent developments in the implementation of the Security Sector Reform Action Plan.

The SSRAP is being funded by the British government through its Department for International Development (DFID). With no meeting of the committee as yet, the High Commissioner’s letter has caused some embarrassment. When the SSRAP was launched there had been promises of rigid adherence to commitments including the convening of the select committee. Asked if the committees have met since they were constituted, the Prime Minister said they did not meet since they were established because of the time factor involved.

He said that the committees were established in December and because of a busy schedule, the committee members were unable to meet by the end of the year. In January he said that the focus was the national budget then the two massacres at Lusignan and Bartica followed shortly after.

In a February 7, 2008 letter to Stabroek News, columnist Christopher Ram noted that the committee appointed to conclude the examination of the DFC Report had been so mandated on July 26, 2007 to do so within a six-month period. He noted that that the period had expired.

The Disciplined Services Commission had handed in its report on May 6, 2004 and the members of the committee are Hinds, who is the head, Minister of Home Affairs Clement Rohee; Minister of Works and Hydraulics Robeson Benn; Minister within the Ministry of Health Dr Bheri Ramsarran; PPP/C MPs Bernard De Santos and Philomena Sahoye-Shury; and PNCR-1G MPs Clarissa Riehl, Deborah Backer and Basil Williams; and AFC MP Raphael Trotman.

Hinds said that the members serve on both committees and he hopes they would be dealing with the two issues at the same time. (Miranda La Rose)