Former Finance Minister Carl Greenidge has sounded an alarm over the country’s apparent shortage of the skills needed for the effective functioning of the recently established Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU).
“The unit has specific and unconventional tasks to perform, tasks which require skills in which we are short. The belief that they can be short circuited is ill-conceived,” Greenidge wrote in a letter published in the Sunday Stabroek, in which he criticised the ruling People’s Progressive Party/Civic government for not doing sufficient groundwork to set up the unit.
“The work assigned to this unit is neither normal police work nor soldiering. The fight against money laundering is simple as a concept. It involves people who make money in a variety of ways including the drug trade getting their money into the banking system as normal deposits so that they may spend it when and where they like without hindrance from the authorities, police, regulatory agencies or banks. Apprehending them requires policing which
