Two weeks after he was sent on leave following the blaze which gutted the Brickdam Police Station, Fire Chief Kalamadeen Edoo has returned to work.
Sources confirmed with Stabroek News that Edoo returned to his office yesterday morning.
Contacted to confirm Edoo’s return yesterday, Minister of Home Affairs Robeson Benn asked Stabroek News “why you want me to confirm that?”
“Why should I get involve in that?….Why are you asking me something which you in the media already know of?” Benn further questioned.
He said, “it’s on social media that he is back…. Just call over there and ask if he is back at work,” Benn told this newspaper.
Edoo was sent on leave on October 5th, days after the Guyana Fire Service (GFS) faced criticism over its performance in fighting the Brickdam Police Station blaze.
Benn had previously told Stabroek News “we have asked Mr Edoo to proceed on leave”. Pressed further on the rationale behind the decision, Benn did not offer any other comment.
During a visit to the scene on the morning after the fire, President Irfaan Ali had lambasted the GFS for their lacklustre performance.
“The response of the fire service was poor, at its best, yesterday [Saturday], and as President, I hope that the fire service can acknowledge this because if you can’t acknowledge the problem, you can’t deal with it,” Ali had said.
The fire which started around 11.06 am on October 2 destroyed more than 80 per cent of the station’s infrastructure and records within an hour. At no point was the fire service able to contain the blaze to one area.
“This is less than three minutes’ walk to a main fire station. We cannot continue as a country and as a people to not address these issues. We can’t continue to make investments and not have the return on the investments. Whether it is in the public service, in the hospitals, the inefficiency has to be weeded out. If you don’t want to perform public service then do the honourable thing, don’t take a job in the fire department and believe it is a part-time job,” he emphasised.
Pointing to the “hundreds of millions of dollars” spent on the Fire Service over the years, Ali said they should be asham-ed of their response.
“To put it crudely, you can’t even respond to an event in your backyard. And the response is not about assets you know, the response is about attitude and commitment and discipline and professionalism and it is about being in a state of readiness… I am publicly putting the Fire Service on warning, this cannot and will not be tolerated,” he stressed.
Benn was asked by Ali “to put together a team to investigate the response to this fire” which he will then act on when completed.
The President had added that Guyana will also tap into diaspora support, as Ali informed that he has asked the Head of Diaspora Affairs to compile a list of all Guyanese that have headed fire stations overseas and are willing to give back to the country of their birth, “so we can bring those expertise home to infuse a level of professionalism” as “this is about professionalism too”.
Questioned about this investigation yesterday, Benn said, “there will be an investigation. We are working on that”.
Edoo took over the role of the Fire Chief in February of this year after former Fire Chief, Marlon Gentle retired.
