Only 270 of 1800 GPF applicants can be accepted every 6 months – Training Officer

Despite the need for additional Police ranks in particular areas throughout the length and breadth of Guyana to help fight crime, the Guyana Police Force (GPF) has regrettably revealed that only a total of 270 applications can be accepted within a six-month period.

This was disclosed by the GPF’s training officer Superintendent Shivpersaud Bacchus during the Force’s weekly radio programme “Police & You” on Tuesday evening.
“For a year we may have 270 persons trained for the six months’ period,” Superintendent Bacchus informed.
“When we looked at an analysis, [it] would’ve shown us that through the walk-in process, we’re having about 10 or 15 persons per day. And when we multiply – let’s say the 15 by five, you have 75 persons weekly. And that weekly we multiply that and we’d have it as a 300 [per month]. So that 300 would multiply for six months, and when you multiply that 300 by six, we have 1800. And remember for a period of six months, we can only train 270, hence you have a bit of back-logging there and persons on a waiting list so to speak or delay,” he said.
Owing to this, the Superintendent noted that persons who would have applied in the past two years would subsequently be on said waiting list since applications from as far back as 2015 would gain first preference given the time lapse.
However, when asked about the resumption of physical training, he stated that the Force was eagerly awaiting the go-ahead to proceed, and when that is given, information in regard to such would be advertised to the general public.
Concerning a question posed by a caller as to why the Force had a large number of applications, the Superintendent noted that job security was the main reason for this.
“Many of the applicants, they came and when you interview them, they are of the belief that they are here for… job security reasons. ‘Cause when you ask them where you were previously employed and so forth, the private organisation… they are telling us straight that as it relates to job security – any time their boss or person who employed them may threaten them – if you don’t do this in the right way, you would be seeking to leave the organisation by way of dismissal or letter,” he revealed.

Training ranks
Superintendent Bacchus shared that they were building capacity within the organisation while stating that training in the GPF was inevitable and did not end at the completion of the six months stipulated for ranks to complete upon entry into the Force.
On this note, he revealed that the GPF was engaged in several overseas scholarship programmes in countries such as India and Russia.
In addition to this, there are also local Government scholarships to the Institute of Distance and Continuing Education (IDCE), which members of the Police Force were entitled to, once they met the necessary criteria.
Also, it was noted that the Force has been in engagements with the University of Guyana and Nations University with regard to programmes dealing with prosecution.
Moreover, with the pandemic still rampant, the Force has seen several virtual programmes being rolled out through the Learning Management System (LMS) platform to accommodate ranks, especially those in far-flung regions such as Regions One, Seven, Eight, Nine, and Ten.
“A lot of our regions, we have dedicated bandwidth where they [ranks] can log on to their mobile device or any other electronic device and receive these trainings virtually…it’s not a limitation, we don’t do gender bias, we see all members as equal,” Bacchus expressed.