Smuggling will end with Pomeroon base – chief of staff

Chief of Staff of the Guyana Defence Force, Commodore Gary Best, has said that the floating security base currently being constructed in the Pomeroon River will allow for permanent monitoring of the lawless port, and bring an end to the smuggling activities in that area.

Speaking with Guyana Times International on Sunday, Best said that permanent monitoring of the port can only be carried out after the base has been fully constructed. “The absence of monitoring of the Pomeroon port and the criticisms and observations that have been made as a result of this are well founded. But we can only, to the extent that we have the floating base, have troops there permanently. So, until then, we will have to continue doing intermittent patrols,” he said.

Best stated, though, that the monitoring of the area is also a joint services’ effort, since it is important to have the GDF and the Guyana Police Force working together. He said, however, that if the GPF is absent in these efforts, the GDF will still continue to man the port on its own, because it is important.

In September, after years of complaints, the government of Guyana approved GY$33.8 million to construct a floating base in the Pomeroon River. Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee recently acknowledged that the lawless port of entry at Pomeroon, Region Two, needs to be monitored. According to the home affairs minister, the Pomeroon area is presently very ‘vulnerable, and no proper security system’ is in place.

Residents of Essequibo have, in the past, urged government to consider building a base there, as this is essential to stemming rampant fuel, drugs and gun smuggling in the area. “An outpost is needed in the Pomeroon in order to monitor the flow of goods and passengers through the river,” People’s National Congress Reform Councillor Cornel Damon told this newspaper recently.  Damon said that many persons pass through the Essequibo Coast with illegal items, but there is no proper monitoring of activities there.

Anti-drug agents have identified the Pomeroon area as a ‘hotbed’ for drug and fuel smuggling.  A top official of the Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit (CANU) has recently told this newspaper that most of the cocaine being exported from Guyana is most likely entering the country from Venezuela via the Pomeroon River. Residents of the Pomeroon spoke of the many unmonitored vessels that ply between Guyana and Venezuela via the Pomeroon River. The Guyana Police and Defence Forces have said in the past that they would normally send out patrols in the area. However, in recent times, there has been a number of incidents in the Pomeroon River, resulting in deaths of traders.  Only recently, a businessman was kidnapped in the area.         Meanwhile, the GDF has also been able to record a permanent presence in the Anna Regina area through the establishment of a base camp there. “The base at Anna Regina is completed, and we are up and running there,” Best assured. He stated that, so far, the support of residents in that area has been very good, adding that they have “responded well to the joint services’ efforts since the base was erected”.