The parliamentary review of the implementation of the UK-funded $1B security sector reform plan has still not begun.

Raphael Trotman

According to AFC MP Raphael Trotman, who is a member of the special select committee tasked with reviewing the implementation of the Guyana Security Sector Reform Action Plan, there has been no progress. “There has been little or no movement in the implementation process,” Trotman told Stabroek News. He said there are no reports that any new components of the plan are going to be implemented or of any negotiations between the UK and the Guyana government.

A Memorandum of Under-standing was signed for the implementation of the four-year plan last year. The five main elements cover building the operational capacity of the police force, from the provision of a uniformed response to serious crime, forensics, crime intelligence and traffic policing; strengthening policy-making across the security sector to make it more transparent, effective, and better co-ordinated; mainstreaming financial management in the security sector into public sector financial management reform; creating substantial parliamentary and other oversight of the security sector; and building greater public participation and inclusiveness in security sector issues.

Meanwhile, Trotman said the committee meeting to review the recommendations of the Disciplinary Forces Commission (DFC) for implementation has continued to hold regular meetings. (One of the conditions of the UK security plan was for the setting up of a special select committee to conclude the reviewing of the DFC report submitted since 2004.) He said it has almost completed its work on the recommendations on the Guyana Defence Force. Trotman, however, lamented the fact that many of the recommendations are subject to the implementation of various components of the UK security plan. “A lot of it [the recommendations] has been overtaken by time and circumstances,” he explained.

He was also critical of the government’s handling of national security, saying that it has not been approaching the issue in a comprehensive manner. Trotman said there is a focus on the operational side of things but societal factors are being ignored.  He said there is need to address the factors that produce crime as well as random acts of criminality. He described this aspect of national security as something the government seems unwilling to address.

The DFC was established in 2003 to conduct a comprehensive review of the army, police, prisons and fire service. Following the completion of the commission’s work, a special select committee was set up by the National Assembly to review the recommendations. However, it did not conclude its work by the end of the last Parliament and last July the new committee was set up to conclude the examinations of the report. Opposition MPs who sat on the previous committee have said that since they completed examining the recommendations for the reform of the police force and they could have been implemented while the other services were being looked at.