The Prison Commission of Inquiry (CoI) has rapped the authorities for the failure to have the emergency fire pump at the Camp Street prison operational during the March 3 unrest and fire which claimed the lives of 17 inmates.
“The institutional failure by the administration to have the emergency fire pump operational since it provides access to 5000 gallons of water and about five minutes of fire-fighting before the Fire Service would have arrived was disastrous,” says the CoI report which was obtained by Stabroek News. The commission’s final report was handed over to President David Granger last month but is still to be released publicly.
“Evidence was given that the pump was not in the operation since last year. Attempts made to repair the pump were futile. A new pump was reportedly ordered from overseas through budgetary funds. To date no pump is available to enhance the firefighting capability of the prison,” the report said.
It declared that the failure of not having the fire pump in operation in conjunction with a reservoir can be considered a neglect by the Prison Administration, a responsibility that can be equally shared with the Ministry of Public Security and the Guyana Fire Service to have a functioning pump at all times to enhance the fire-fighting capability at the Georgetown Prison.
The report had noted that there is evidence that strongly suggests that when the first fire was lit in the hole of the Capital A Block, the Standard Operating Procedures were not followed in terms of notifying the Fire Department on the observation of a fire. “It is believed if the Fire Service was called they would have been on the scene earlier,” the report said.
“It can be argued equally also that the ‘Flash Over’ caused the fire to escalate in a matter of minutes and, importantly, since the lock of the door was tampered with by the prisoners, the Fire Service would still would have been prevented from saving the inmates’ lives,” it added.
The CoI probed the March 3rd, 2016 Camp Street Prison unrest, which claimed the lives of 17 inmates. Stabroek News had previously reported that the CoI has concluded that the prisoners were mostly to blame for the deaths of 17 inmates and it has urged the formation of a committee to focus on reducing the overcrowding in the prison system where at least 60% of the population are on remand.
