-contract awarded for $5.9M
Long awaited rehabilitation work on the Brickdam lock-ups, recently in the spotlight over its inhumane conditions, will begin Friday.
According to a statement from the Government Infor-mation Agency (GINA), the $5.9M contract was recently awarded to the Roxanne Primo General Constructions Co., which will be responsible for works including tiling of the floors and installation of new washroom facilities, doors and a lighting system. To facilitate the works, inmates of the prison would temporarily be relocated for a seven-week period, during which renovations are expected to be completed.
Stabroek News attempted to contact the company but efforts proved futile as it is not listed in the telephone directory and officials at the ministry refused to divulge any contact details.
Recently, many people who have spent time in the lock-ups have described it as an experience they would not wish on anyone. At the opening of the annual general meeting and conference of the Association of Caribbean Commissioners of Police (ACCP) in May, Caricom Assistant Secretary-General Dr Edward Greene spoke about the dehumanising conditions under which persons are detained. He had said such conditions “epitomise the abuse of their human rights,” which has “serious implications for the image of the police and the legitimacy of their role as one of the agencies of human and social development.”
Following Greene’s criticisms, Owen John, who along with his two sons spent many hours in the facility, said after his experience he could endure anything. The man and his sons, who have since been charged, were arrested under controversial circumstances and were forced to spend several hours in the lock-ups. The man had said when he and his sons first entered the lock-ups they were shocked to see about 40 men lying on a concrete floor. Some were lying on a sheet; others were on old newspaper, and the rest on the bare concrete. “It was not a pleasant sight at all,” he stated. “The place is an abomination… not even a dog or a pig should be kept in such conditions.”
Last year, a push-cart operator who spent four days in the lock-ups after getting into an altercation with another man told this newspaper that the two toilets in the facility could not be used because they were overflowing. There were cells, he said, which had become toilets and were filled with faeces and urine.
A young professional with whom this newspaper had spoken to had said: “The first thing that hits you is the stench. It is a smell that no human being should have to experience. The smell is so unbearable that it causes your eyes to water and your skin to burn.”
There are no lights and prisoners sleep on the bare concrete and – in this instance – unhygienic floor. The cart-operator had said that detainees were only allowed one small drink bottle of water with which to wash themselves, and anyone who didn’t have bottles simply had to go unwashed. The thing that upset him most, he had said, was that the morning tea was served to detainees in the same bucket which was used to clean the cells. It was dished out from an enamel cup into a detainee’s bottle, and if they had no bottle then no tea.
In January 2002, Chair-man of the Bar Council of England and Wales, Lord Daniel Brennan QC had recommended that the facility be shut down after a visit to Guyana aimed at improving the local judicial system. During his visit Lord Brennan met with members of the judiciary, the police force and the prison service. He had also toured the Camp Street Prison calling it a “reasonable” facility but had said that the Brickdam lock-ups should be “locked up and closed.”
Other contracts awarded under the Guyana Police Force, according to the GINA release, are for the Leonora Police Station, which will be rehabilitated at the cost of $5M and a Commander’s Quarters, will be constructed at the cost of $6, 731,661. Rehabilitative works will also be carried out at the Narcotics Building, CID Headquarters at a cost of $5,589,500, Turkeyen Police Station at $9,765,500, Yarakita Police Station at $5,942,431, Baramita Police Station at $7,295,210, Enachu Police Station at $7,567,110, Adventure Police College, Berbice at $6,115,557, and Richard Faikall Police College, Suddie, Essequibo at $7,769,560.
