Three years on…State of the art forensic lab still to be commissioned

May 11, 2014 News

It was supposed to be completed 12 months after the initial contract signing in April 2011, but three years later, Guyana’s first state of the art forensic laboratory is still waiting to be commissioned.
The last date given for its completion was February. Although two more months have passed, there has been no word from the Ministry of Home Affairs about when the multi-million dollar facility will become operational.

The state of the art forensic lab at Turkeyen.

The laboratory, which is located in the University of Guyana compound, Turkeyen, was launched under the Citizen Security Programme (CSP), which was initiated by the government and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). It is expected to greatly enhance the Guyana Police Force’s investigative capabilities.
Earlier this year, Minister of Home Affairs, Clement Rohee, had disclosed that the while the state of the art facility should have been completed by April 2013, work had been held up because the primary contractor, Courtney Benn Contracting Services, had experienced setbacks.
The equipment and other items for the laboratory were procured and installation commenced in January, following the insertion of uninterrupted power supply to the building.
Last Octobe, Cabinet cleared a contract worth $49.79M for the supply and delivery of small apparatus for the forensic science laboratory.
Last year May, vacancies were advertised to fill the post of Director and 13 other positions in the Guyana Police Force’s Forensic Science Laboratory.
In January, Rohee had told the media that the Director had already been hired and that several other positions have been filled.
But, while the facility will be the most modern and sophisticated laboratory in Guyana, there will be no DNA testing facilities just yet.
The Home Affairs Minister had said that the Office of the President has asked that there be capacity in the laboratory for DNA testing. However, this will be done after other work is completed.
“What we have decided to do is complete what we have set out to do in accordance with the plan for the completion of the lab, because we don’t want to delay, further, the commissioning of the lab. We will complete what we have started, and on completion of this, we will then move to the next stage, so we will then look at ways and means of incorporating DNA testing into the functioning of the lab.”
Local detectives have been continuously hampered by the absence of DNA testing facilities. They have had to send samples overseas at prohibitive cost and have also had to endure lengthy delays in obtaining results.
The Force first used DNA testing in the still-unsolved 1993 murder of security guard Monica Reece.
DNA testing was also used to identify the remains of the Lindo Creek massacre victims and in the murder of bank clerk, Sheema Mangar.
The fact these have to be done overseas has often raised the question of compromise and timeliness.
On several occasions, samples that were reportedly sent overseas for testing have not yielded any results; in some cases the samples never left Guyana.
Recently, the police have been sending samples to neighbouring Brazil but this practice should soon come to an end.