The Ministry of Home Affairs is inviting persons to bid for the opportunity to provide the Guyana Police Force with an armoured water cannon truck.
An advertisement in Wednesday’s Guyana Chronicle said that the ministry is also inviting persons to bid to supply the force with a mobile outpost.
Bidding will be conducted through the National Competitive Bidding (NCB) Procedures and interested eligible bidders can inspect the bidding documents and obtain further information from the ministry.
The advertisement said any bid with a total exceeding $3M must be accompanied by a bid security of 2% of the bid price.
In its budget the government had announced plans to spend $37M on a water cannon to quell demonstrations and this was met with some criticisms which were later dismissed by Minister of Home Affairs Clement Rohee who said it was better to use the water cannon than rubber bullets.
In a letter to this newspaper Shirley Shaffeek and Susan Collymore of Grassroots Women across Race had expressed shock about the announcement in the recent budget to purchase a water cannon.
“It is shocking to know that the fire service does not have equipment to fight fires in Guyana, but the government can purchase water cannon that cost $37 million in taxpayer dollars to disperse demonstrators,” the women had said in the letter.
However, when contacted Minister Rohee had said the fire service does not “have a problem with equipment” and when it was pointed out that there have been many complaints from members of the public, especially about the service’s hoses which are pockmarked with holes, the minister said that the “hoses have completely been recycled and repaired.” He did concede later that “from time to time there are holes in the hoses.”
At last Monday’s fire that destroyed the administrative building of the St Joseph Mercy Hospital leaking hoses were being used by firemen to quell the flames.
“It is very important, I think it is very important; it is better to use water cannons than to use rubber bullets,” the minister had said.
The women in their letter had said that there had been several elections and a drastic step such as using a water cannon had never been taken.
“This is violence against the people of Guyana. Grassroots Women across Race is totally against violence in any form,” they wrote. They questioned where the water would come from to fill the tanks of the cannon. Guyana at that time was experiencing the El Nino weather phenomenon.
