Guyana close to having internationally
Opening the annual officers’ conference yesterday, President Irfaan Ali said that Guyana is in the final stages of having an internationally accredited police academy as he stressed the importance of having a professional force.
According to the President, the greatest expansion of training for members of the police force occurred last year. He said, “We had a tremendous transition of persons now having first degrees, diplomas, masters, PhDs, pursuing law so we are in a situation where I believe that in the next four or five years we will have a highly trained, competent and qualified police force and this is an important part of the transition.”
Importantly, Ali said that the Guyana Police Force was tasked with “integrating what we are doing with the regional policing and to deepen our partnership at the regional level”, adding that they are proud of expanding their relationship to the extent that the country is in the last stage of having an internationally accredited police academy.
He stated, “This is one of the things that we wanted to achieve, build infrastructure here, build systems here that are of international standards because we believe this is how we can share our prosperity with the rest of the region.”
As such he noted that they are also now “integrally integrated in the RSS (Regional Security System), we are providing leadership in many regional institutions and we are also working with extra-regional partners, and I will say that the last year we have also expanded tremendously our partnership with the United States, with India, with the UK.”
He added that there are ongoing collaborations and cooperation with agencies from those countries.
Turning to the ongoing training of prosecutors, Ali said that it is to upskill prosecutors not only with the “competency but with the type of in-classroom and technical expertise that is required in the execution of their duties.”
He then further stressed that it is extremely important that a highly professional police force is built, “so that any citizen can go to bed, sleep well that there are institutions in our country that will not falter and disappoint the people of this country.”
“In doing so the police force must be so professional that safeguarding democracy and the rule of law is natural, it’s not based on influence, but it’s natural, it becomes an inherent character, an inherent character of who you are when you put on a uniform”, he told those gathered.
He said, that once the uniform them that individual must not hid duty when the country needs them democracy, the rule of law, and up country’s constitutional requireme not hide from this responsibility.”
According to him, they have al to work on improving the total w age for the men and women in un still a lot of work to be done whic ing.
“I want to assure you that by the to 2027, there is a misconceptio resource inflow, the magnitude that will come into the revenue country will have the greater effect onward, and by then I believe that across this country, our men and w