GPF to resuscitate dormant CPGs in WBD communities

In an attempt to build, strengthen and preserve the relationships between villagers of La Parfaite Harmonie, Plastic City, and Belle West in Region Three (Essequibo Islands-West Demerara), Divisional Police Commander, Senior Superintendent Mahendra Siwnarine is looking to resuscitate dormant Community Policing Groups in the areas.

In a recent episode of the “Police and You” programme, Superintendent Siwnarine said that, though not under his leadership, he is aware of the cries of the residents of those areas with respect to the lack of confidence in the Police. He said that he has recognised that these areas need Police attention.
“In addition to Parfait Harmonie, two other areas we would have recognized need some more attention, that is Plastic City at Vreed-en-Hoop, and the Belle West area, especially the squatting area where we have a number of Venezuelan citizens occupying there,” he said.
The Commander said that he has plans in place to visit the affected areas, specifically Parfait Harmonie, to get a first-hand understanding of what is actually happening.
“As it relates to Parfaite, we would have reached out to the members of the community previously. We have an outreach slated for later next week in Parfaite also. So far, taking over as Commander of that region, I personally would not have received any complaints. I would have done some rotations within all of the stations and while no complaints have been forthcoming, we do intend to go on the ground in Parfaite to actually get a feel of what persons are experiencing,” he explained.
Siwnarine explained that there might be persons who are frustrated over the delivery of service being offered to them by the Guyana Police Force (GPF) and promises to address this in an upcoming outreach.
“You might have persons being frustrated and don’t see it necessary to reach out to the Police anymore to air their concerns. So, I’m just putting Parfaite on alert that we’ll be in your community next week to listen to any concerns that you may have and any complaints that you have in terms of our delivery of service.”
Furthermore, he noted that he is working on re-establishing the Community Police Groups in those areas and also forming new ones in villages across Region Three.
“Even when I was Commander for C and B, we kept reaching out to those dormant groups, those persons that would’ve been disheartened over a period of time, they would have served for a number of years now. When reaching out to those people, we have been appealing to them to come on board back with us. So, one of my missions actually is to resuscitate the dormant CPG groups and also to reach out to communities that don’t have CPG groups. So, we work along with the CPG coordinators for Region Three to see how best we can have groups resuscitated and new groups formed,” he said.