The new Guyana Fire Service (GFS) Headquarters on Homestretch Avenue is scheduled to be completed by the end of next year.
In a recent telephone interview with Stabroek News, Fire Chief Kalamadeen Edoo said that upon completion, the new building will provide a comfortable environment for staff members and also boost the fire service’s response.
In January of this year, the Ministry of Home Affairs had signaled the plan for the construction of the new headquarters, which will be built west of the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall on Homestretch Avenue and next to the proposed Guyana Football Federation’s complex.
The project is expected to cost $648 million and 12 companies have since submitted bids for the contract. Construction is expected to begin before the end of this year.
Presently, the fire service is situated in the congested Stabroek Market area. The heavy presence of traffic in the area often affects the fire service’s response time.
The new building is expected to house a control room, office space for senior officers and administrative staff, washroom facilities and a conference room.
Edoo explained that the engineers recently had to make some changes to the initial design of the building to suit the plot of land allocated.
According to Edoo, the new building will be “more spacious and convenient” to conduct all the necessary activities, including fire drills and lectures.
“The same appliances, the same personnel, the same equipment, the same offices, everything will remain the same. It’s just that it’s a new building,” he said.
He added that members of the public will also have “easy access” to the public building. “The public will be able to feel more safe to come to the fire service…The public will be able to have easy access to come to the fire department,” he noted.
With construction due to begin by yearend, it is expected that the new headquarters would be completed within a 12-month period and the building should be ready for accommodation by late next year, Edoo said.
“Clear, quicker response”
Recently, the GFS has faced criticisms over its response to a number of major fires, particularly last month’s Brickdam Police Station blaze.
During a visit to the scene on the morning after the fire, President Irfaan Ali had lambasted the GFS for its lacklustre performance.
“The response of the fire service was poor, at its best… 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.
“This is less than [a] 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 GFS over the years, Ali said it should be ashamed 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.
Edoo told Stabroek News that the fire service continues to improve its response on a daily basis.
“Our response time is based on the time we receive the call. Once we receive the call during the initial stage of a fire, then we respond and can immediately effect firefighting mode,” he said.
The new facility, Edoo explained, will assist the GFS “tremendously” to this end since he said it will be able to respond “quicker” from the new location. “We would not get any obstacle in terms of traffic as we have the congested area within our vicinity present right now at the Stabroek Market. It’s a clear, it’s a quicker response,” he said.
Additionally, Edoo related that efforts are underway to acquire some new equipment and hire additional staff.
“We are working on budget allocation to acquire those additional equipment that we need to improve our firefighting capability,” he said.
As the GFS’ operations expand, Edoo further noted, there would automatically be need for more staff. “As we expand, we have to get more personnel,” he said.
Apart from the new headquarters, Edoo said a new fire station at Eccles, East Bank Demerara should be on stream soon.
He said several others are also being established in the hinterland regions.
To ensure there is adequate staffing recruitment is presently ongoing, Edoo said.
