The police force’s crime fighting ability may be on the way to improvement as bids have been invited from persons interesting in constructing its forensic lab.
According to an advertisement appearing in today’s Guyana Chronicle sealed bids from eligible and qualified bidders are being invited “for the construction of a 5,817 square feet, two-storey building (reinforced concrete building) to serve as a Forensic Laboratory. The delivery/construction period is twelve months.”
According to the ad the building will be constructed through the International Competitive Bidding (ICB) procedures specified in the Inter-American Development Bank’s Policies for the Procurement of Goods and Works financed by the Inter-American Bank (IDB), and is open to all bidders from eligible source countries as defined in the bidding documents.
To be qualified one must have completed works of similar nature, have an annual turnover of at least $60M have a project manager and a civil engineer on their proposed staff and NIS and IRD compliances for local bidders.
A complete set of bidding documents in English may be obtained in electronic format by interested bidders on the submission of a written application and upon payment of a non-refundable fee of $10,000. The method of payment will be cash or bank draft to the IDB-funded Citizen Security Programme and the bidding documents will be sent via courier to overseas bidders. The closing date for bids is January 4, 2011 and must be accompanied with a bid security of $900,000. The bids should be sent to the Project Coordinator of Citizen Security Programme at Lot ‘MM” Ogle, East Coast Demerara and Chairman of the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board Ministry of Finance, Main and Urquhart Streets.
In February of this year PNCR-1G member of parliament, Debra Backer, had asked Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee whether the site for a forensic lab had been identified and if so, when would work begin. Rohee had responded in the affirmative and stated that the contract had been awarded for the design of the building and negotiations would have begun with the University of Guyana (UG) authorities on the matter. “It is anticipated that the construction will start this year and hopefully by the end of this year we will have the forensic lab structure in place”, he said.
Crime Chief Seelall Persaud had recently told this newspaper that the IDB had allotted US$1M under the Citizen Security Programme for the construction of the Forensic Lab.
He had said that it was decided that the lab will be located in the UG compound.
According to Persaud after construction of the building is completed the remainder of the money will be used to solicit equipment for the lab even as he indicated that the force had already started acquiring equipment.
“From the end of last year to now,” the Crime Chief had said, “we have been acquiring forensic equipment… these are very expensive pieces which can do chemical analysis and human fluids.”
