Ramjattan dismisses PPP call for sacking over prisoner deaths

While the PPP yesterday said “heads must roll” for the fatal fire at the Camp Street prison, which resulted in the deaths of 17 inmates last Thursday, Public Security Minister Khemraj Ramjattan dismissed the call for his sacking as “ridiculous.”

PPP General Secretary Clement Rohee, who had served as Home Affairs Minister in two successive PPP/C governments up to last year, told a news conference that while his party did not leave “a perfect system in place,” the David Granger administration must take the blame for tragedy and Ramjattan must go.

“If there is one recommendation Mr Granger has consciously overlooked it is the dismissal of Prakash Ramjattan as the Minister of Public Security of this country. Lying at the feet of Ramjattan and indeed the Granger administration are 17, not three dead bodies,” Rohee said, while adding that it did not matter that the government is less than a year old and had inherited a bad prison system.

“Haul your a**!” was Ramjattan’s first line of response to Rohee’s statements. He told Stabroek News that Rohee is being “ridiculous” knowing fully well that what had transpired was no fault on his part.

Ramjattan said that he has the full support of the President, the National Assembly and Cabinet members at this time. “We are doing the best that we can,” he added.

The prisoners died after fire was set to mattresses in Capital A section of the Georgetown Prison during a protest over prison conditions. The unrest began the night before with nine fires being set. The situation was brought under control but escalated the following morning.

Several prisoners also remain hospitalised with burn injuries.

Asked if it would not be fair to give Ramjattan an opportunity to show the public how he would handle this situation before a call is made for his dismissal, Rohee said, “No, I think that is in a way apologising and covering for him. The question gives me that impression.”

Rohee subsequently accused the media of seeking to justify the actions of government and of Ramjattan when comparing what has happened previously to what is happening now. “I don’t agree with that kind of prognosis. I don’t support that prognosis,” he said.

During the press conference, Rohee continuously blamed the APNU+AFC government for the tragedy.

“The Granger administration stands condemned. Heads must roll for this unforgiveable and unforgettably episode in the hierarchy of the security sector in general and the Prison Service, in particular,” he said.

Asked to justify blaming the government for what has transpired given that it was new in office and that it would have inherited a prison system with many challenges from his government, Rohee responded, “Well, they inherited what we left. It doesn’t matter how long they have been there.”

He added that while in opposition the present government had boasted that it “had the answers. That we [the PPP] are doing bad. That we are not performing well.”

Rohee, who had a vote of no confidence passed against him as minister by the combined opposition in the last Parliament, said the APNU+AFC is in government now and “it doesn’t matter how long they are there… I always say the king is dead, long live the king. You can’t only inherit the good, you have to inherit the bad; you have to deal with both the good and the bad. So, for me it doesn’t really matter if they are there for one month, two months… after three months they give themselves huge salary increases. How do they justify that?”

He recalled a government official saying that they had the best security experts at the ministry and during the recent budget debates and consideration of the estimates it was revealed that there were many who were hired on contract at the Ministry of Presidency and the establishment of a Department of Defence there.

Blueprint

Meanwhile, Rohee stated that the former government had been looking to reform the prison system and had left behind a blueprint which the new administration can use.

Rohee said the plan took into account “every single thing,” including overcrowding, which once more came into focus due to the high number of inmates at the Georgetown Prison. He said overcrowding cannot be looked at in isolation from the criminal justice system. “I have always maintained that as the police become more effective and more efficient, more people are going to be arrested. As the criminal justice system becomes more effective and efficient, more people are going to be successfully prosecuted and more people are going to be warehoused either on remand or on conviction,” he said,

Rohee said that in the 2004 Disciplined Services Commission Report solutions to the problems facing the prison system were offered. Many of the significant recommendations of the commission were never implemented by the PPP/C administrations.

Among the recommendations, Rohee recalled, was the expansion of the Mazaruni Prison to accommodate those prisoners who ought to be moved from Georgetown. “Mazaruni was the location that was identified for that. Forget this question of building a new prison. There will always be competition about whether money should be spent for a new prison or whether money must be spent for a hospital, a school, a road,” he said.

He later revealed that the then PPP government did have a plan to construct a new prison at Timehri but this ran into problems when lands were identified for the airport expansion project. “The land that was identified for a new prison had complications…,” he said.

Rohee told reporters that while his party was in power it had several plans for the prison system, including making Timehri into the facility for first offenders and those who were “unknown” as well as developing it into an “industrial hub” where items, such as concrete blocks, would have been made by prisoners to be sold and used within the system.

He also mentioned developing the Lusignan prison into a model prison, mainly for young offenders who are on remand or sentenced for minor offences. “The whole idea was to transform that place [into] a model prison to prevent them from being contaminated by the hardcore prisoners,” he said, before adding that the idea was to have a lot of emphasis placed on education at the facility.

The New Amsterdam prison, which accommodates male and female prisoners, he added, was to be used mainly for poultry production. He said that a poultry farm already exists but the plan was to expand to produce food for the prison and to sell any excess.

Mazaruni, he added, was to be the agricultural hub of the prison.

He said the PPP government spent millions of dollars providing tools for the trade shop and informed that most of the furniture in the Family Court was built by prisoners after the Prison Service won the contract.

Reading from a prepared statement, Rohee said the reforms were eventually absorbed into the total overall Strategic Plan to transform the Guyana prisons into a correctional institution. Implementation of the Strategic Plan was aimed at enhancing the transformation process which had already began with the establishment of a Sentence Management Board, the Recruitment and Training Board, the Agricultural Development Board, the Prisons’ Visiting Committees as well as the establishment of the Cecil Kilkenny Training College at Lusignan, he added.

“The formulation of a comprehensive compilation of Standard Operations Procedures (SOP) under one cover was accomplished for the first time thus providing ranks of the Guyana Prison Service with a tool to guide them in their day-to-day functions,” he further stated.

According to him, the prison reforms initiated by the PPP/C administration are unmatched in the history of the Prison Service and augur well for the future provided they are “not jettisoned by the APNU+AFC coalition administration.”

He said the Granger administration must look at all the prison locations in the country and not only the Georgetown Prison. The informal, illegal networking among prisoners at the various locations are unimaginable and challenging, consequently they pose serious security risks to the country as a whole were they to be activated in a coordinated manner at the sometime, he added.

“To prevent any re-occurrence of this type, the Granger coalition administration must pick up from where the PPP/C left off,” he stressed.

“The PPP/C had its challenges at prison locations around the country. The party would be the last to say that it has left a perfect system in place but, at the same time it would be true to say that the challenges were not insurmountable nor without solutions,” Rohee said.

He stated that it is an uncontestable fact that throughout the PPP/C’s entire 23 years in office “there was never a shooting of tear gas or live rounds at prisoners nor a riot of the magnitude that recently took place that cost the lives of 17 prisoners and a number of injured.”