Brickdam lockup rehabilitation suffers setbacks in public tender process

Brickdam lockup rehabilitation suffers setbacks in public tender process – Public Security Minister

Oct 30, 2016 News

Even as concerns continue to rise over the stalled rehabilitation of the Brickdam Police lock

Acting Police Commissioners David Ramnarine

ups, Minister of Public Security, Khemraj Ramjattan, has explained that the detention facility, which was due for corrective works under this year’s budget, has suffered due to setbacks in the public tendering process.
Minister Ramjattan was at the time, responding to questions posed by media operatives at the Press conference held yesterday.
According to Ramjattan, a number of projects under the Public Sector Investment Programme, also had huge allocations in the 2016 budget but they were stalled by the “bottlenecks” of the public tendering processes.
The Minister explained the rehabilitation process of the lock ups has seen its fair share of troubles.
There were three bidders involved in the evaluation process at the National Tender Board.
At one point, the Minister said that the process was stalled because all three bidders were non-responsive.
But only one bidder, he said, maintained interest in the project at the level of the National Tender Board.
“That now is with the National Tender Board … I rather suspect that they will be the only one who will be doing it. It should have awarded before December 31, so at least the monies allocated in this year ‘s budget is going to be given to the contractor for purposes of doing that bit of work,” Ramjattan explained.

Minister of Public Security, Khemraj Ramjattan

The Minister said, too, that some amount of corrective work needs to be done on the lockups due to design flaws.
Ramjattan’s comments come days after Acting Police Commissioner David Ramnarine called for the works on the facility to be expedited to adequately serve the needs of A Division.
Ramnarine, during a press briefing, had said that the state of the key detention facility “continues to be of grave concern to us as law enforcement officials”.
“The burden of shifting serious crimes suspects to other lockups on a daily basis is one we have been bearing with tremendous patience over the years. I wish to take this opportunity to urge the officials concerned to spare no effort to realise this much needed facility in the capital city of Georgetown,” Commissioner Ramnarine said.
A Division, of which Georgetown is part, deals with close to 60 percent of the reports of serious crimes.
Commissioner Ramnarine said that it is challenging for the Guyana Police Force (GPF) to find holding facilities for offenders in the division. “You have to eke out scarce mobile resources and manpower every day to traverse long distances to detain suspects at other facilities,” the Commissioner explained.
According to a Government Information Agency, (GINA) report Commissioner Ramnarine explained that there is need for an increase in the number of holding cells at the Brickdam lockups. “They need to make it more efficient; they need to make it more accommodating and they need to address human rights issues,” Ramnarine explained.
The Acting Commissioner said that these concerns have been raised with the Ministry of Public Security which has oversight responsibility for the GPF.
“There needs to be more effort in terms of expediting, enhancing that process. It’s a key facility it should be given the requisite attention of more attention as the case demands,” Commissioner Ramnarine said.