The new Magistrate’s Court building constructed at Fort Wellington is still to be occupied almost two years later even though West Berbice was made a magisterial district more than one month ago.
Sessions are still being held in an old building belonging to the Regional Democratic Council which court officials and other persons say lacks basic facilities such as a magistrate’s chamber, adequate furniture and a washroom.
The witness box and prisoners’ dock are broken and recently when Magistrate Chandra Sohan was presiding he declared that he would not be swearing any more witnesses there because of that reason.
“They have a new building for the court and I don’t know why they are not opening it,” the magistrate said.
Reports are that other courts around Berbice are also in deplorable condition. According to Sohan during one of his court sessions, the Albion Court does not have a magistrate’s chamber and he “has to go straight on the bench” even when the session is not ready to start and he also remains there during the breaks.
He also lamented that the court has “no furniture and no washroom facilities” while the New Amsterdam and Whim Courts do not have water.
This newspaper was told too that the NA Court has suffered break-ins through the windows in the upper flat on a few occasions and so far nothing has been done to secure the building. A source from the court said the most recent break-in was a few weeks ago when the curtains were removed.
Shortly before that, the source said cleaning agents were stolen. Reports are that a guard hut was constructed sometime last year but so far no guards have been appointed and the zinc sheets have been removed.
Meanwhile persons observed that the police stations in Berbice do not have standby generators in case of blackouts during the nights. Persons said that they turned up at stations in East Berbice as well as West Berbice where a modern station was built at Fort Wellington and noticed that the ranks were taking reports with the use of kerosene hand-lamps.