‘I wanted to go spank that Policeman’ – Ramjattan says of rank who crashed new vehicle

After he heard the news that a policeman had crashed one of the newly acquired vehicles, Minister of Public Security, Khemraj Ramjattan wanted to meet the rank and “spank” him.

At the commissioning of a spanking new Prison Vessel on Saturday morning, the Security Minister told a gathering of senior officers that he got very angry when he heard the news of the accident as he sat in the National Assembly during the 2018 budget debates.

“You can imagine how I start with my expletives the next day when you see one of them crashed somewhere in Berbice…and you got so angry. You wanted to leave Parliament – when I saw it, I was in Parliament – go spank that policeman and come back. People somehow, just do not care sometimes…some of these people got to be better trained,” Minister Ramjattan said.

News Room had reported that just a day after the Guyana Police Force received new vehicles from the Chinese government, a police rank crashed into a motor car on the Canje Public Road on December 7, 2017.

Reports had indicated that the police jeep, which was moving at a fast rate of speed, overtook another vehicle and crashed into the car which was turning left into a street at the time.

When the vehicles were handed over to the force, Minister Ramjattan urged the ranks to take care of the new assets as he announced new Standing Operating Procedures (SOPs) and made it clear that those who damage police property will have to pay for it.

Following the commissioning of the Prison Vessel, the Minister told reporters that he is awaiting the report on the accident and all he has been told thus far is that the policeman was speeding at the time of the incident.

“That is exactly the kind of behaviour I did not want, of a driver, driving a brand new vehicle. But it happened and in this life, all kinds of things will happen. I got very angry, I wanted to talk personally with the policeman but the Commissioner told me, just keep it you know down, because what can I do? As a Minister, you really can’t do anything. That was one of the policemen who heard me when we deployed the thing a few days ago,” the Security Minister told reporters.

He said that the policeman will be given due process following which the necessary action will be taken by the Commissioner of Police.