Dear Editor,
I was extremely appalled to see the Mayor and Councillors of the City of Georgetown inviting bids recently for the leasing of the City Constabulary Training Complex on Water Street, Georgetown. This is a facility which once housed the ‘House Service Department’, but which was completely retrofitted a few years ago, at substantial cost, to accommodate a full City Police Training School.
The first question to be asked is whether the City Council would be disbanding its City Police Department. Because, surely, they could not be planning to maintain this force without having adequate training and refresher training for its ranks. If there is a City Police Department in the world that is in dire need of training, it is the Georgetown City Constabulary. For some unexplained reason – I don’t know whether it is the working conditions, the salaries and other emoluments offered, or just the stigma of working for the City Council – the City Constabulary does not attract the best of recruits. They seem to have to scrape the bottom of the proverbial barrel after the army, the Police Force, the Fire Service and the Prison Service have selected their recruits. So, from the get go, the Constabulary has to put in extra training to get its recruits up to scratch, and yet they would like to scrap the school and lease out the facility. Such an absurdity!
Over the years, the performance of the City Constabulary has been so dismal that they have been involved in many unprofessional acts, and have been unable to maintain law and order in the City, all of which can be attributed to a dearth in training. So why the rush to lease this facility out, which has within its confines all the facilities needed for a Police training centre, such as a drill square, well designed and laid out live-in barracks for recruits, training and lecture rooms, a library, kitchens for meal preparation and dining areas etc?
Then would they not have to create from scratch a new facility elsewhere? It just makes no sense. Indeed, it is rather questionable that, as soon as the market for riverside and waterfront properties became pronounced as a result of the new oil and gas industry, a few persons at the Council immediately began discussing selling this prime municipal property, and only after a hue and cry by some concerned citizens was the plan changed to leasing it.
I think I smell a rat somewhere!
Sincerely,
Mark Roopan
