“Less lethal” approach taken in Police-public engagement – Minister Benn

Home Affairs Minister Robeson Benn stated that as part of the Government’s efforts to improve public trust in local law enforcement agencies, active efforts are being undertaken to ensure that engagements between Police and citizens were less lethal.
“Our approach now is a more empathic approach… We have taken the results here on the floor of this Assembly to take less lethal resorts in the engagement between the Police and the public,” Minister Benn stated on Thursday during his presentation in the ongoing debate on Budget 2023, which allocates $58.6 billion towards strengthening security in Guyana.
According to Benn, the Government’s policies and programmes have seen a 20.6 per cent reduction overall in serious crimes between 2015 and 2022.
“We have reduced total robbery, serious crime, murder and violence by average figures of 20 per cent… Crime and violence have been reduced and it has a lot to do with our support to the Guyana Police Force with the provision of new vehicles, new training, new efforts in respect of crime and violence and the prevention and mitigation of that.”
In fact, in recognition of good policing coupled with professional, well-trained officers being critical to promoting order, safety, and a welcoming environment, some $140 million has been allocated in Budget 2023 to improve the capacities of about 3000 security personnel, which would result in heightened public confidence and support of local law enforcement institutions.
Moreover, the Home Affairs Minister noted that there has been a dramatic increase in the seizure of narcotics owing to the efforts of the Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit (CANU) as the country continues to have more arrests regarding illegal and unlawful activities here.
However, Minister Benn pointed out that in some instances, it has been found that lawless behaviours are fuelled by negative political messaging.
“We have identified that the problems subconsciously engendered in some people’s minds with respect to lawless behaviour and not pursuing ambitious issues in personal self-development have to do with political messaging of a negative kind,” he stated.
One such instance, Benn highlighted, are calls being made by an overseas-based political activist, who is associated with the People’s National Congress (PNC)-led A Partnership for National Unity (APNU), for ‘Georgetown to burn’ if the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) was not removed from office.
This, according to the Homes Affairs Minister, comes at a time when steps are being taken by the Government to address the increase in fires in public buildings, especially schools.
Over the past two years, there has been a spate of fires at school buildings across the country with the most recent being the blaze at the Christ Church Secondary on January 12 which displaced over 500 students and staffers including teachers.
The Guyana Fire Service has concluded that the fire was an act of arson, and the Home Affairs Minister has already warned that the perpetrators would face the full brunt of the law.
However, Minister Benn noted that Opposition Member of Parliament (MP), Coretta MacDonald’s remark Thursday morning that “only when PPP/C in Government that school [does] burn” is an admission by that side of the National Assembly that there was a “rational beneficiary” of such acts.
“A rational, logical beneficiary – it was admitted to at that podium over there this morning,” the Minister insisted.
However, he outlined that the Government was pushing for a more empathic environment, especially in the National Assembly and encouraged Opposition MPs to distance themselves from any acts of arson, especially on school buildings.
“We are talking largely across the country that we are pursuing a programme called ‘increase the peace’… but the first place peace has to be increased is on the floor of this Honourable House… I ask before that the Honourable Members of the House, the APNU/AFC [Alliance For Change], separate themselves [and] disavowed the remarks made [by both the political activist and the MP]… If schools are burnt, if public property is burnt down [then] whose taxes, whose monies, whose efforts over the years, whose children are inconvenienced – it is all of ours,” Benn asserted.
In response to the Home Affairs Minister’s challenge, his predecessor – former Public Security Minister under the coalition Government – AFC Leader Khemraj Ramjattan, stood up in the National Assembly to declare “I disavow all violence and destruction of schools!”
Nevertheless, the Home Affairs Minister highlighted that to further enhance the Guyana Fire Service’s efforts to tackle fires, Budget 2023 has provisions for seven new ‘fire assets’ and three modern ambulances.