Despite the government having given a commitment six months ago, the select committee on the Disciplined Forces Commission (DFC) report is yet to begin tackling its mandate and the lethargy has been deplored by PNCR MP Deborah Backer.
Backer noted that two parliamentary select committees set up last year to review the implementation of a British-funded $1.05 billion security sector reform project and conclude examining the 2004 DFC report are yet to get down to serious work.
The UK-funded four-year comprehensive security sector plan unveiled last year, promises sweeping reforms including the setting up of a special firearms support team. The plan is to be implemented over four years. One of the first steps towards implementation was for the government to table in Parliament, a summary of the action plan and motions to set up special select committees on the DFC report and to review the implementation of the action plan. On November 1 last year the motion was tabled in parliament and passed paving the way for the setting up of the action plan committee.
Backer said both committees – for the DFC and the British plan – had been formed, but no meeting had been held. Backer told Stabroek News in an interview that both committees met on January 15 this year, almost two months from the time the National Assembly passed the last motion. She said they merely elected a chairman for each committee and since then another meeting has not been convened.
Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee is the chairman of both committees and Backer said it was he who had the responsibility for calling meetings. However, the PNCR front bencher said that notwithstanding Rohee’s failure to convene a meeting, collectively as leaders they were too reactive to matters of national security. “We are always with knee-jerk reactions to security in this country,” Backer said.
Stabroek News was unable to make contact with Rohee to solicit a comment on the issue.
Backer said now that gunmen had slaughtered 11 people in Lusignan all the various schemes and security plans would come into focus. “We have to be more serious about your national security and all of us have to take the blame,” the PNCR MP said.
With regard to the DFC report, Backer said it continued to puzzle her that after so many years the report was still undergoing scrutiny by the National Assembly.
On July 26 last year, the National Assembly passed a motion to re-establish a special select committee to conclude the examination of the 2004 DFC report and recommendations, which were not completed in the Eighth Parliament. Opposition MPs had called for a four-month time frame for the committee to complete its work, but Prime Minister Samuel Hinds in whose name the motion was moved said six months was more realistic from the date of the appointment of the committee.
January 26, the day on which a large band of gunmen carried out a one-hour assault on Lusignan residents was ironically exactly six months following the motion on the DFC select committee. The DFC was established in 2003 at the height of the prison escapee-led crime wave, which dramatically changed the security landscape in the country. Persons were robbed and killed on a daily basis by heavily-armed bandits and a death squad believed to have been controlled by drug dealers, sprung into existence. Dozens of young men in and around the city were killed.
In response to the crisis, President Bharrat Jagdeo and Leader of the PNCR Robert Corbin, during their constructive engagement talks, brokered an agreement for the DFC to be established. Justice of Appeal Ian Chang chaired the Commission.
Some opposition MPs who sat on the previous DFC committee have argued that the body had completed examining the recommendations for the reform of the police and these could have been implemented while the other services were being looked at. Alliance For Change leader Raphael Trotman, who sat on the last committee while he was a PNCR MP, said it was a travesty that up to now the recommendations haven’t been implemented.
The UK security reform plan seeks to build the operational capacity of the police force in terms of a uniformed response to serious crime, as well as augment forensics, crime intelligence and traffic policing capabilities. The plan will also strengthen policy-making across the security sector to make it more transparent, effective and better coordinated. Bringing financial management in the security sector under the umbrella of public sector financial management reform; creating substantial parliamentary and other oversight of the security sector and building greater public participation and inclusiveness on security sector issues are the other components of the plan.
The committee is expected to receive and examine official annual reports from the administration on the status of the implementation of the activities in the eleven priority areas on an annual basis and also to provide a final report to the National Assembly of their examination of the reports on the implementation of the entire action plan.
In a press statement mid December last year, Britain had said that immediate actions that have been agreed would be implemented early this year. These include the training of an anti-crime unit in rapid response tactics and techniques; a series of measures including the provision of equipment to improve the response of the Guyana Police Force (GPF) to calls from the community; support for the GPF in managing crime-related information, through the assistance of a UK crime intelligence specialist; and the assistance of a UK police organisational specialist to help update and implement the GPF’s strategic plan. (Nigel Williams)
