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.