Minister of Home Affairs Clement Rohee met with Mahaica Residents to discuss ways of effectively identifying and addressing the loopholes that led to recent criminal occurrences in the area.
Concerns raised by the residents include noise nuisance and other petty crimes, firearm licences, slothful response by ranks of the Mahaica Police Station, armed robbery and proliferation of drugs particularly among the youth population.
Minister Rohee in his response to the issues raised explained that in any organisation that is made up of a large number of persons such as the Guyana Police Force (GPF), there will always be some who will make bad decisions while others will not allow their judgment to be clouded.
He noted that the recent occurrence of criminal is of great concern to the Government and several steps have been taken to address these issues.
With respect to complains of ineffective response by the police, the Minister said that Government spends huge sums every year to equip ranks with vehicles so that they could respond promptly to calls for assistance from citizens.
He added that this complaint is common in almost every police division which is why he has requested the Commissioner of Police to create a national inventory of all water and land transport assigned to the GPF. 
He highlighted that while Government is working to ensure that every station is equipped with the basic minimum in terms of resources.
He urged the police to repair the damage done to the trust and respect with members of the community, since a collective security approach is necessary to deal with the issues that are plaguing the area.
He also urged that formation of Community Policing Groups (CPGs), which are provided with the necessary training and tools to assist the police in fighting crime and criminal activities.
As it relates to school dropouts and out-of-school youths, the Minister said that the Ministries of Home Affairs, Culture, Youth and Sport and Labour as well as the GPF and the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) have designed several programmes to keep the youth population gainfully occupied.
Meanwhile during a meeting with the Private Sector Commission (PSC) yesterday at the, Minister Rohee while noting the trauma that results from criminal incidents said that “the big picture remains the fact that national security remains intact.”
He added that irrespective of the gangs that there may be and the extent to which they may be armed or the impact they may have the Guyana Defence Force, Guyana Prison Service, Guyana Police Force and the Guyana Fire Service are all up to speed to deal with any threat to the stability of the state.
According to Rohee there is a perception among the public that there is a renewed upsurge in crime in Guyana but people need to look at what the statistics show and weigh the perceptions against the statistics.
