Acting Commissioner of Police David Ramnarine disclosed on Saturday that there has been an increase of applications from former members of Guyana Police Force (GPF) who want to rejoin the Force.
Speaking on Saturday where he addressed junior ranks on corrupt practices within the GPF, Ramnarine pointed out that most of these applications are from persons who claimed to have been wrongfully dismissed.
“Within the recent past, we have seen an increase in applications to rejoin the Force but I’ll tell you what, 99 per cent (of the applications) no way!” he stated.
Acting Top Cop David Ramnarine
According to the acting Top Cop, these persons have written to senior government officials claiming that they were “unjustifiably dismissed” among other reasons but a look at their file, a different story is often told.
“When the staff officer brings up the file and you see a constable, with small number of years of service, has 40 charge sheets and has over 400 days sick leave, are you telling me that this is someone we should reemploy in the Guyana Police Force? That must be the height of stupidity for me to agree for reinstatement,” declared Ramnarine.
He further noted that from six applications from ex-members with questionable characters that he has responded to, there has since been no word from the applicants.
“I thank God for that, because there ought to be no reply,” he stated.
Ramnarine remarked that persons can write to whomever they want, pointing out that the Force is now a public place with nothing to hide. He outlined too that he has no problems with former members turning to government officials instead of approaching the Force itself for reinstatement; however, the acting Police Commissioner cautioned that there would be repercussions.
“There is no problem, that’s the way things are now and it’s been so for a while but it’s the response that will be given, where your dirty conduct will be exposed now. It was remaining quiet in a file but it will go public now because you want it that way, you didn’t give me any choice,” he posited.
Moreover, Ramnarine stated that because the applications were sent to the government, he would hand over the files to the Public Security Minister so that it can be seen how they lied about their dismissals from the GPF.
“So the Minister would see how lying you are when you wrote about the injustices. The file is there as proof, I didn’t put anything in the file and your officers didn’t put anything in the file… so there it is. That’s the way forward,” he said.
According to the acting Commissioner, this same practice obtains within the Police Force, whereby ranks go over their Divisional Commanders and write to the Commissioner of Police about issues that can be dealt with at the divisional level. Ramnarine noted that he will not encourage such practice where ranks undermine their commanders.
