Stolen OLPF laptops found at Queenstown security firm

Jun 20, 2013 News

– plough, plasma TV, Health Ministry’s property among booty

A government security contractor is in hot water after police, in search of stolen items, discovered millions of dollars worth of suspected stolen items including several laptops linked to government’s One Laptop Per Family (OLPF) programme.
Up to late last evening, ranks from the city and the West Demerara area were still loading a Canter truck filled with speakers, several flat screen TVs, computers and even a plough, that was recovered from the Queenstown compound of Strategic Action Security Limited.

Police raided this Queenstown office of Strategic Action Security yesterday, recovering several OLPF-marked laptops, and other items suspected to be stolen.

The company, which is reportedly managed by Richard Kanhai, is a company that normally bids for security contracts on Government properties.
Police, Kaieteur News was told, arrived at the 93 Laluni Street residence/office sometime around 15:00hrs.
Reportedly, investigators were tipped off that several stolen items were sold to someone there.
Police ranks searched the security company’s offices and later moved over to a back building that is part of the compound. There they reportedly forced open a secured area. It was there that they made the startling discoveries.
In addition to around seven or eight OLPF-marked laptops, there were plasma TVs, and a host of other items. The ranks reportedly were preparing to conduct searches in another area in the compound late last night.
Kaieteur News understands that police in the West Demerara area recently arrested a number of persons for theft. Those arrested reportedly claimed they sold the items to a Queenstown businessman whom they named.
Included in the haul was said to be a computer power backup system with a Ministry of Health marking on it.
The OLPF laptops may very well intrigue investigators as 100 of them disappeared last August from the project’s Queenstown, Georgetown office. The police had been called in.
To date, no one has been arrested and according to Cabinet Secretary, Dr. Roger Luncheon, several staffers were subjected to lie-detector tests. The tests were inconclusive.
In April, Dr. Luncheon disclosed that on the basis of the investigation by the police and the result from the lie-detector test “we haven’t got any closer to identifying who specifically is or was the thief.”
Kaieteur News was told that all the people who came under suspicion took the test and the response of quite a few of them “generated considerable doubts in the minds of the analyst.”
The OLPF is a multi-billion government project meant to, over a three year period, distribute 90,000 computers to poor families who cannot afford one.
The security company will now have to explain how the OLPF laptops ended up there.