Govt. to ring-fence police assets to prevent misuse
Mar 01, 2025
Kaieteur News- The Government of Guyana intends to ring-fence the assets of the Guyana Police Force (GPF) to prevent misuse. This was announced by President Irfaan Ali on Wednesday during the opening ceremony of the GPF’s Annual Officers’ Conference.
He said that the digitization of the Police Force, which is a priority for his administration, will aid in the ring-fencing of the assets.
President Dr. Irfaan Ali
“As I said, we have to ensure that the technology that we are building is safe, technology is relevant, and the technology must allow greater accountability and traceability,” he stated.
The President said that through digitization much more can be achieved.
“When you speak about technology and digitization, what technology digitization will allow us to do is to evaluate performances, to evaluate weaknesses, devalue strengths, so that we will know who erred or who did not fulfill their duties,” President Ali said.
Highlighting traceability as a critical component of the government’s modernization efforts for the Police Force, the head-of-state underscored that technological advancements would enhance accountability within the GPF.
He reminded that the government has allocated $34.3 billion to the GPF in the 2025 budget, the highest sum in the Force’s history. Of that amount, $2 billion will be dedicated to upgrading the Force’s transportation fleet.
“But also, in the upgrading of the transportation fleets. We are going to be investing in a system, a system that will ring-fence, that will ring-fence our assets, so that our assets cannot go on other rides except operational rides,” he said.
He added, “That’s important, because we have to safeguard the asset. We will have GPS mapping and tracking of our assets, so that we will know when we invest $2 billion in our assets and when the public call, and we know we have five vehicles within five minutes of where that call is coming from, and none of the assets move, we will know where they were, what they were doing, and then we’ll have to hold people accountable as to why they did not respond.”
The president’s announcement regarding the ring-fencing of police assets comes amid ongoing debate over the government’s decision not to implement a similar provision for oil operations in the Stabroek Block.
Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo has previously accused the former APNU+AFC administration of “selling Guyana out” to foreign oil companies by failing to include ring-fencing in the Production Sharing Agreement (PSA). However, he has since defended the current administration’s position against such a provision, arguing that it could negatively impact future oil revenues.
Ring-fencing in the oil sector would mean that each project pays for itself before profits are shared. Under the current PSA between Guyana and ExxonMobil’s consortium, 75% of monthly revenue is deducted to cover costs, while the remaining 25% is split equally (50/50) between the government and the oil companies.
Without this provision, the oil companies are allowed to give Guyana meager profits while they take the lion’s share to develop other oil projects in the Stabroek Block.
(Govt. to ring-fence police assets to prevent misuse)
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