The paint samples from the boat involved in last year’s collision in the Essequibo River that left two men dead and 10-year-old Ricky Jainarine missing are still to be tested by police.
Crime Chief Seelall Persaud told Stabroek News last week that the Guyana Police Force has

acquired a new piece of equipment that is going to be used for chemical analysis which includes the sort of analysis that needs to be conducted on the paint sample.

He said the installation of the equipment is “very technical” and he could not give a specific timeframe within which the installation will be completed. Persaud however noted that installation can be finished as soon as next week though if technical difficulties arise, it can take as long as next month. In October, he had told this newspaper that the installation would have been completed in a month’s time and then the testing would have been done.

Ricky Jainarine went missing five months ago following a boat collision in the Essequibo River. His father, Jainarine Dinanauth, 45, and a family friend, Henry Gibson, 45, died in the August 11 incident. That evening, the three were heading to Hog Island in the Essequibo River. The bodies of the two men were discovered in the shattered boat the next morning but there was no sign of Ricky.

Relatives believe that rogue coastguards were involved in the incident but it is not clear how it occurred. Ricky’s mother Salimoon Rahaman had scoured the Essequibo in search of her son in the weeks following the incident but her searches failed to yield any sign of the lad. Relatives believe that a bag that washed up at Wakenaam shortly after the incident and then disappeared; had contained his remains.
An investigation by the Maritime Administration Department had found blue paint on the green Coastguard vessel and there were green paint marks on the blue and white boat that the trio was in. Persons had also reported that in the days following August 11, the Coast Guard boat was dry-docked for three days and there were reports that a section had been painted over. A Guyana Defence Force investigation was ‘inconclusive’ but it did find that the Coastguard boat was in the river at the same time as the boat the trio was in. The paint samples from the Coastguard boat were handed over to the police for testing. The file on the matter was sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions.