SSR report “vigorously interrogated” by NSC

The Security Sector Reform Report is currently being reviewed by the National Security Committee (NSC), comprised of local security stakeholder agencies. This is almost seven months after that document was handed over to Government.
Minister of State, Joseph Harmon, told reporters at Thursday’s post-Cabinet press briefing that while the report is before the Council of Ministers, it is also being looked at by the NSC.
“I know there was at least one special session of the committee where they looked at these recommendations, and there’re some additional work that’s taking place on it; and once that is done, you’ll certainly get a report out of what is taking place. But I can say to you that the report is being vigorously interrogated (scrutinised), so that it in fact reflects what is needed in a modern police force,” Minister Harmon explained.
The US$4.7 million Security Sector Reform Programme was initially launched in 2007, but was scrapped two years later, after major disagreements between the then administration and the United Kingdom Government over some of the condition of the plan.
During a meeting with then British Prime Minister David Cameron back in 2016, President David Granger had requested that the multi-million-dollar security sector pact be revived.
British security expert Colonel Russell Combe was brought in to conduct an assessment of the local security sector, and he compiled a report which detailed steps to be taken to improve services. While the report focuses primarily on reforms within the Guyana Police Force, there are measures included to address issues plaguing the Prisons and the Fire Services, as well as the Guyana Defence Force’s (GDF’s) Coast Guard.
At the handing over of the report back in January, Combe had said the presentation of the report was neither just the beginning nor end of efforts to reform the local security sector.
“The report is dynamic. It’s not to represent just the beginning. Activities supported by the United Kingdom have already commenced: the training of (Police’s) Strategic Planning Unit last year, and then in November there was consultancy on the marine capability of the Police Force; and indeed, (we were) engaged with the Coast Guards as well… So this is not the beginning, nor is it the end,” he had noted.
The UK security expert had further stated that his Government does not want to see the report sitting on the shelf, gathering dust. In fact, he noted that the report was compiled in such a way that it can be broken up and separated into its parts, to be dealt with by different groupings.
Colonel Combe is expected to oversee the implementation of his recommendations until March 2019, when his tenure would be up.