by Mindy Aguon

Guam - It is still unclear who in the government failed to respond to a draft report from the Office of the Inspector General on the state of Guam public safety. The report, submitted to the governor back in November, notes that the Guam Police and Fire Departments are not properly equipped or staffed to meet the needs of island residents.

Both agencies were determined not to be meeting their mandates or fulfilling their missions and the IG had given several recommendations to help GPD and GFD achieve their missions.

During an informational briefing on Thursday, Vice Speaker B.J. Cruz questioned whether GPD had ever responded to the IG's draft report. "The Guam Police Department did not receive the IG report and not asked to respond to the report?" he questioned, leading Acting Police Chief Colonel Maurice Sayama to respond, "To my knowledge and the people I've asked at the Chief's Office, no sir."

Captain Sonny Castro added, "I'm the chief's assistant and there was no document delivered to or received by the chief's office concerning this."

Only after the informational briefing was GPD given a copy of the IG report that states that without meeting established standards of service delivery for all public service functions, island residents may be at risk.

The recommendations to the government included establishing a methodology to develop a service matrix to include the needs, resources and service expectations for GPD and GFD, establishing a continuous review process to determine if the goals are being achieved and determining a method to provide public safety funding from local sources of revenue.