Egg on faces of police over FULs

THE EDITOR: The office of the Commissioner of Police (CoP) is being threatened with legal action over a recently published notice with respect to the requirements for the renewal of firearm user’s licences (FULs).

Attorney Nyree Alfonso outlined in a letter to the office of the commissioner that the law does not require those who had obtained their FULs prior to 2004 to have them renewed. Alfonso said the current wording of section 17(6) of the Firearms Act, “a licence held by a person prior to the coming into being of this act (in May 2004) shall continue to be valid after the commencement of this act,” means basically that “such licence shall remain in force until revoked or otherwise terminated.”

The CoP is calling on thousands of licensed firearm holders to obtain medical cer­tificates and certificates of competence again, and this will no doubt require a lot of time to comply with if the CoP continues down this line.

It seems the administration at the office of the CoP is so consumed with personal vendettas or agendas that it has missed the real pathway it originally set out when it first started the journey. It has caused the administration to become blind to what it wanted to accomplish by the amendments to the Firearms Act.

Intentions always seem honourable at the beginning of the journey, but when seated on the chair of power, that is where we get our wires crossed and blurred. That is why it appears to onlookers that since the unceremonious exit of previous CoP Gary Griffith there has been a dedicated team placed to rummage through everything it can put its hands on in an attempt to gather enough evidence to point a finger or two at something nefarious and corrupt in the way FULs were distributed to law-abiding individuals. All originating from the liberal stance the previous CoP took as it relates to the issuing of FULs.

For the first time this gave the law-abiding people a fighting chance to stand their ground and protect their business or family in this crime-riddled country. The dedicated team has been looking for that needle in the haystack that seems to be elusive at this point or does not exist. Nevertheless, audit after audit has taken place, coming up with zero so far. So, egg remains on the faces of the police service and its leadership.

It is alleged that the latest audit is taking place in the eastern district where they are calling in all holders of FULs to visit the station with their firearms for inspection. This normally takes place annually when all FUL holders are required to visit their respective districts to pay their licence fees and present their firearms for inspection. So why the change?

With the amount of time and wasted manpower hours to hunt down FUL holders, one wonders if they couldn’t handle this in the normal manner? It gets worse. While the audit is taking place, a new process in licensing firearms has been implemented by the office of the CoP, which is currently being challenged in the court by two law firms.

The new process, if successful, will capture all the information being sought by the audit. This is clearly another overlap as it seems to be a gross mismanagement of resources. This time and effort could be channelled elsewhere, such as dealing with the violence and murders across the country.

We are currently under siege with the daily murders and robberies of the innocent, the elderly, the businesspeople, and now the kidnappings have returned, all causing much distress and heartache.

“The single biggest way to impact an organisation is to focus on leadership." But where is the leadership in this organisation? The performance of any institution, once properly led, will bear positive results and I’m praying that the current CoP's prayers are answered as she has called for divine intervention to deal with crime.

She said, “An evil has spread over the land and we must recognise, those of you who are spiritually inclined, you must recognise that this is beyond the physical and unless we seek the intervention of that greater spirit, whatever we may call him, we know we have different religions, so who will call him God, who will call him...”

In the meantime, the FUL holders have a serious issue that requires urgent resolution as it potentially affects thousands of them and they would be anxious to comply with directives issued by the commissioner. Something must be done!

DR NEIL GOSINE

via e-mail