Public Security Minister a failure – Opposition Leader

Crime spiralling out of control

…as crime continues to ravage Guyana

Crime continues to ravage the country and Public Security Minister, Khemraj Ramjattan is more focused on building his portfolio for the prime ministerial candidacy for the Alliance for Change (AFC) rather than addressing the threats to citizens’ security across Guyana.
This is according to Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo, who on Thursday said that Ramjattan had failed at executing his duties over the past four years in office and that his failures are having serious, negative effects on the Guyanese populace.
According to the Opposition Leader, since assumption to office, Minister Ramjattan is yet to do an efficient and effective job, adding that the Minister’s trajectory to date is one that is filled with fiascos.
“This Minister has been a failure, 17 persons died under his watch, the worst prison fire ever in our history the tragedy in the prison under his watch. We had 23 years in Office, none of that happened. We had a second fire in which the entire prison burnt down, we have to spend billions of dollars repairing, building a new prison now,” the Opposition Leader said.
According to Jagdeo, crime is ravaging the country and even the prisoners at certain jails are not being taken care of or properly monitored.
This, he said, should be a top priority for the subject Minister, and had Ramjattan done his job effectively over the past four years, a lot of trouble with the prisons could have been avoided.
“We have had, I believe, more escape from prisoners in his tenure in the last four years than the entire independent history of Guyana. This is his track record. Every single day gun crimes, we started off with the petty crimes now the gun crimes have picked up,” he noted.
Between July 9 and July 10, 2017, a ravaging fire at the Camp Street Prison completely flattened the structure, causing several high-profile criminals to escape.
One year prior to this unfortunate incident, in March of 2016, 17 prisoners died as a result of unrest that started in the same location.
Thereafter, there have been constant breakouts from the Lusignan Prison, where in one instance alone 13 inmates had escaped.