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Digicel gets $27M contract to install police 911 system

Mar 19, 2017 News

Telephone service provider, Digicel, has been awarded a $27M contract for the installation of the 911 business solution emergency service contract.
This was announced by the Minister of State, Joseph Harmon, during the Post-Cabinet press briefings yesterday at the Ministry of the Presidency, Georgetown.
Last year, Minister of Public Security, Khemraj Ramjattan began consultations with local telephone service providers for the establishment of the 911 (Guyana Police Force) and 912 (Guyana Fire Service) emergency lines because the defunct 911 emergency line continues to be a troubling issue.
Some $250M was allocated in budget 2017 for equipment for the Guyana Police Force. In 2014, a blame-game had ensued between the Guyana Telephone and Telegraph (GT&T)’s management and the Guyana Police Force over the ineffectiveness of the 911 emergency numbers.
According to reports, the Police Force believed that the problem was technical on the side of GTT, rather than human on the side of the Police Force.
GTT, on the other hand, had released a statement in 2014 calling out the police for the less than satisfactory responses to 911 calls.
The phone company had said that there were handsets which had disappeared at the 911 receiving stations. In some cases, handsets were taken off the hook or the phones were not answered by personnel during standard working hours.
Opposition MP Clement Rohee, while he was Home Affairs Minister for the PPP government in 2014, laid blame at the feet of the phone company saying the company was dodging responsibility.
Last year, the acting Police Commissioner, David Ramnarine, had stated that despite a 2014 review of the 911 system which recommended a range of reforms to improve its efficiency, the service remains problematic.
The Private Sector Commission (PSC) has been clamouring for years for the system to be upgraded. The body had noted that service was essential for any citizen who is under threat to be able to request a police response
“People are dying, people are being hurt… The 911 system, in my view, is a national emergency and everybody from the President right down should not go to bed at night if this 911 system is not working and I am appalled that they do,” PSC executive Captain Gerry Gouveia had told a press conference last October.

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