The Canadian Government is looking to help Guyana better train its ranks in the Guyana Police Force in the areas of human rights, public corruption and crime scene management, according to outgoing Canadian High Commissioner Dr. Nicole Giles.

Canada has provided Guyana with continuous financial and other assistance over the years to strengthen its security sector and has recommitted to its continuation even with the new APNU+AFC coalition government in place.

The Outgoing Canadian High Commissioner during a courtesy call on the newly appointed Public Security Minister,  Khemraj Ramjattan, on Monday,  pointed out that funds will be available through a grant of CAN$750,000 to help develop the justice system in Guyana.

The funding is a part of a project with the Justice Education Society of British Columbia, which is a Canadian Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), which aims at strengthening the justice system.

It is expected to be spent on legislative drafting, improving the administrative department of the courts, and training for lawyers and judges, along with capacity building for police officers.

According to the Minister, among several issues were discussed in relation to training and capacity building for Guyana Police Force officers, “Better training from the Royal Mounted Branch, also the police college out of Canada, it has to do with mentoring our police men and women,” said the Minister.

This, he added, will be done in five areas: gender violence, women in police leadership, human rights, crime scene management and public corruption.

The Security Minister also noted that crime scene management will be a major focus under this training programme because “here in Guyana, it is believed that almost anybody can go on the scene, it is not done properly, and then evidence and a whole lot of other things are tampered with negligently, and sometimes deliberately.”

He also reiterated that “we feel with this type of training that we are going to implement in the police force, we will get better results and far more deterring effects… we feel that it can have direct influence in impunity rates.”

Minister Ramjattan said “I believe we are on a good road here in bringing more success in the security sector.”

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