Police scandal rocks Guyana Police Force

Several highly embarrassing corruption scandals have rocked a government-dominated Guyana Police Force and they appear to involve a slew of very senior officers who are openly favored by the governing People’s Progressive Party (PPP) and who it seems have political and administrative immunity.

Pilloried by opposition parties, exposed by mainstream and social media, the scandals have forced the suspension from duty of acting Deputy Chief Calvin Brutus, whom it is alleged has acquired extensive wealth in recent years way beyond his police salary and allowances. Brutus was the number two officer in charge of administration but he has been sent home on administrative leave pending an internal probe that opposition activists have dismissed as useless because the police are investigating itself.

Opposition parties and social media commentator Paul Slowe, a respected retired assistant commissioner, have all furnished bills and receipts showing that Brutus had astonishingly deposited about US$82,000 or G$16.5 million into the police credit union in one single transaction, but the money was returned to him shortly after because of procedural and administrative reasons.

Senior credit union officers had explained that the money was way above union limits and was outside normal rules. To their consternation, some of the ranks involved in the transaction with Brutus were later transferred out of the credit union for alleged insubordination, demoralizing and confusing their replacements.

In other areas of deep concern to officials, some of the senior officers have established their own commercial companies in the past year to supply and procure hundreds of millions of dollars in materials for the very force they are serving, ranking in millions of dollars while junior officers and staff whisper about the situation and often make copies of receipts in the event they are implicated.

The receipts and other confirmatory documents are kept by the ranks to show they were forced to obey orders in the event of legal trouble. These same receipts and checks were signed and approved by the very officers who own the supplies and procurement companies, representing a frightening level of collusion and a clear case of conflicting interests, officials say.

Unable to bear it any longer, Minister of Security, Robeson Benn railed against the scandals at a police conference in the past week, noting that “we want new and accountable policing. If monies go to places where they should not go, it means there is massive collusion and corruption. That’s the only explanation for it. You need to root it out. If it is cancer, we hope it does not need surgery or chemotherapy and we hope that it ain’t reach stage three or four. I have to account for it (monies) in parliament and other places,” said a distraught Benn.

Rattled by the continued expose mostly on social media, the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCCI) said the state of affairs at police headquarters was “repugnant” as it called for an independent probe in a release this week.

“If the agents of the state who are responsible for maintaining stability and lawfulness are engaged in malfeasance, then they can no longer be trusted to uphold the standards that they ought to be enforcing. The force must not operate with impunity—in fact, the members of the force must be held at a higher degree of accountability. Failure to act can be viewed as assenting to corruption, and this can lead to a descent into lawlessness. These circumstances are abhorrent and untenable; therefore, the chamber calls for it to be dealt with swiftly and for those found culpable to face the brunt of the law.”