Dear Editor
Top Cop, Clifton Hicken, in his maiden speech after being appointed Acting Commissioner of Police, boasted that the Guyana Police Force has a new Strategic Management Plan 2022 – 2026. A Guyana Police Force press release, issued after the recent signing of the Memorandum of Agreement between the Guyana Industrial Training Centre and the Guyana Police Force, quoted Senior Superintendent of Police, Calvin Brutus, masquerading as an Acting Deputy Commissioner as saying that the signed Agreement was part of the GPF Five Years’ Strategic Management Plan 2022 – 2026. According to Brutus, the Plan focuses on training and development. This Strategic Management Plan 2022 – 2026 appears to be Top Secret. Ask the general membership of the Exe-cutive Leadership Team of the GPF about the Plan, they will not only be at sea, but way out in the ocean grappling to explain it to you. Sub Divi-sional Officers, Inspectors and Sub-ordinate Officers who were contacted are not au fait with the plan. They have the majority of the police ranks under their command, but they cannot pass on to their subordinates what is contained in their Strategic Management Plan 2022 – 2026 because they do not know about it. If the Plan really exists, it is block-ed at the very Apex of Management in the GPF. There are numerous burning questions: When was this New Plan conceptualised, designed and developed? What consultations were done and with who? Did the police look at international best practices? Was external help sought from experts, or was the Plan done by unqualified and inexperienced members of the Force? Did they identified strategic risks? Was the plan compressed into a single document or is it in several pieces scattered all over the place? Was it circulated to at least all the officers? Would there be an evaluation? Did the police plagiarise? There are numerous other questions to be asked. The words of Reggae singer, Johnny Nash keep ringing in my ears, “There are more questions than answers, and the more I find out, the less I know.”
Factual Background: On February, 23, 2011 Simon Reeves, Director of Capita Symonds submitted to Khemraj Rai, Programme Coordina-tor, Citizen Security Programme the Guyana Police Force Strategic Plan 2011 – 2015, for approval and possible implementation. The Plan was part of the Citizen’s Security Pro-gramme, funded by the Inter-Ameri-can Development Bank. It rests on five legs: (1) Operational Priorities (2) People (3) Partnerships (4) Per-formance and (5) Infrastructure. Space does not permit me to go into great details. The Plan identified twenty-five strategic risks and recommended that the GPF develop a Strategic Risk Management Plan to identify mitigating measures and monitor each risk’s ongoing relevance as well as identify emerging risks. Here are some of the strategic risks: Alleged and perceived corruption within the GPF will adversely affect public trust and confidence in the police; The staff of the GPF may be resistant to change so that the activities outlined in the Plan may not be achieved or will have to be delayed; The Ministry of Home Affairs does not have a Strategic Management Plan to give guidance to the GPF; Insufficient human resources will be made available to the GPF to implement the Strategic Manage-ment Plan; There will be implications for the nature and type of criminality in Guyana as a result of increase in the population and/or an influx of non-Guyanese nationals; There will be an insufficient succession planning to ensure that skilled resources are in place to deliver the Plan; Managers in the GPF will not be equipped to deal with new and emerging challenges arising from modernisation; An increase in the economy of Guyana may increase the demands on the GPF which cannot be managed within existing resources. Those risks were relevant then. They are even more apposite now. They are staring us straight in the face.
The Government of Guyana accepted the 2011-2015 Strategic Management Plan and started the process of implementation. There were monthly meetings at the Ministry of Home Affairs with the Minister and key personnel of the Police to discuss the Strategic Management Plan and the One Year Comprehensive Training Plan among other components of the Citizen’s Security Programme. I attended those meetings as the Force Training Officer responsible for the Training Plan which was conducted by the Emergence Group of the United States of America. I can vividly recall Assistant Commissioner of Police, David Ramnarine, who was on the police team encountering problems with Minister Clement Rohee when he was bold enough to complain about the monthly trekking to Brickdam and political interference. The 2011-2015 Strategic Management Plan had many stops and starts. In fact, Commissioner Seelall Persaud abandoned the Plan and disbanded the Police Strategic Management Unit despite Head of that Unit, Pàrick Mentore, making real progress with his limited human and other resources. The Unit, which at one time was headed by an Assistant Commissioner of Police, is now under the control of an inexperienced Assistant Superintendent of Police. It is packed with personnel who are not experienced or well qualified in strategic thinking and management.
I have not seen the New Strategic Management Plan 2022 – 2026. I heard some words about the Plan from Senior Superintendent Brutus, they are: Opera-tional Priorities, People, and Partnerships, Performance and Infrastructure. Sounds familiar? Those are the legs of the Strategic Management Plan 2011 – 2015. I do not know if the New Plan also stands on those five legs or if any of the legs were cut off and fresh legs added. Is it basically a copy of the previous Plan with very little changes? Whatever the Plan is, it must be understood, appreciated and communicated to all members of the GPF for effective implementation. In addition, the public must be aware what their protectors have in store for them in order to promote and maintain much needed public confidence and trust in the Force. Strategic Management is important to any police force, more so, the Guyana Police Force. The Plan is about changes. It is about reform. Most reforms fail because the authorities concentrate on the agents of change while the victims of change are neglected. The victims of change are the people in the organisation who will be adversely affected by the changes. They must be equipped with the requisite coping skills to deal with the changes. Rules without relationship lead to rebellion. Effective communication is the lifeblood of any law enforcement agency, whether it is written, spoken, downward, upward, lateral, formal, informal, internal or external. Let the communication on the Strategic Management Plan 2022 – 2026 flow freely from the Apex of Management to Ground Zero, to the general public who the police swore to serve and protect. May God guide and bless the Guyana Police Force.
Sincerely,
Clinton Conway
Assistant Commissioner of Police
(Ret’d)
