Additional works are to be carried out by a Barbados-based firm to make the Guyana Forensic Laboratory fully operational, Minister of State Joseph Harmon said yesterday, while pointing out that it will take another month or two to reach the stage that government wants it to be at.
Harmon also informed reporters during a post-Cabinet press briefing that the firm, which was contracted by the previous government to install security systems at the lab in 2012 and to carry out additional oversights the following year, is owed US$32,524.
He said Cabinet has since approved the payment of this sum which would result in the firm returning to Guyana to complete training for staff and other works so as to ensure that there is a “functioning forensic lab”.
The $1.049 billion lab, which was funded by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) was commissioned on July 14, 2014, at which time it was stated that in addition to conducting a broad range of tests, a section of the sprawling 12,000-ft complex will be used as a training ground for science students of the University of Guyana.
Following the change of government, it was discovered that the lab had a whole range of problems.
There was a minor electrical fire at the facility in 2015 and a US-based contractor subsequently said that he refused to do remedial works on the building because of faulty wiring.
Harmon told reporters that the lab, though completed, was “basically incapable of carrying out the functions to which it was meant to carry out” and that the firm was now required to take “certain steps to operationalise the laboratory”.
He said that while the technical and electrical issues were meant to be cleared up by this company, the arrears need to be cleared first before work resumes.
“We believe that once this payment is made that within a month or so…that the lab should be up and running,” he said, noting that several things will be done by the lab including DNA testing and the analysis of evidence collected from crime scenes. The lab, he stressed, is very important in the crime fight.
Minister of Public Security Khemraj Ramjattan had told this newspaper in January last year that toxicology testing was being done at the lab along with the examination of forged documents.
Quizzed on whether there was any lab work or testing occurring, Harmon said he was not aware of any testing being done there now. “I shouldn’t say no testing is being carried out because I can’t say whether some low-level testing is being done, but what I can say is that the minister’s information to Cabinet was that in order for that to be fully functional we need to have this sum of money paid and the company come and complete the work,” he said
Asked how soon he averages that the lab would be at the stage that government wants it to be, he said that they are looking at a time frame of about month or two after the firm returns there having received the outstanding sum.
There has been concern that the lab is not of international standard and is unable to carry out testing which costs the county millions of dollars every year at overseas labs. This lab was seen as important given the country’s ongoing problems with labs in the Caribbean. For example, it took years to get the results of the samples taken from the Lindo Creek massacre site that were tested in Jamaica. Guyana has also used a lab in Trinidad and more recently Brazil.
The Americans were approached for funding too. However, former Chargé d’Affaires at the US embassy here, Bryan Hunt, had told Stabroek News in a 2015 interview that there was need to get the base right and bring the lab up to international standards.
Asked about assistance the US could offer in terms of DNA analysis, Hunt had said that a number of experts have taken a look at the forensics lab and while “at some point in the future it would be a wonderful thing for Guyana to have DNA capability, we first have to get the base right, we first have to get those initial components of a forensics laboratory operating with qualified personnel.
Right now your forensic laboratory is not considering adding an immediate DNA capacity. DNA would be a significant step up from where the current capacity is. We have to get the current capacity that was built functioning correctly with the qualified personnel to administer that before we take the next step upwards.”
