The law faculty at the University of Guyana was without running water for at least several days last week.
A number of students who are on campus for face-to-face classes have complained about restrooms being out of order along with the absence of water.
Stabroek News first visited the building on Tuesday to investigate and discovered that indeed there was no water.
Stabroek News reached out to both the Vice Chancellor, Dr Paloma Mohamed and the current head of the law department, Kim Kyte-Thomas on Thursday. They both explained that the water pump within the building had broken down last week. The Vice Chancellor told Stabroek News, “The water pump went down late last week, and a new pump was procured and installed on Wednesday.”
Kyte-Thomas also told Stabroek News, ‘I can tell you though, we have good water service all of the time. The pump was down last week, but we received a new pump which is up and running.’
However, Stabroek News revisited the building on Friday and discovered that water was still not running and the washrooms were out of order.
During the visit on Thursday, it was also noticed that there were no fire escapes. The law faculty building is three stories high. Other than fire extinguishers at various parts of the building, no fire escape was seen.
When the Vice Chancellor was asked about this, she said, “I would love all our buildings, including Stabroek News’ office and every public building in Guyana, to have fire escapes.” She further explained that the buildings are regulated by their campus’s health and safety unit, saying, “We have a functional office of occupational health and safety that manages safety and compliance on our campuses.” The law building was refurbished in 2019. Stabroek News asked why a fire escape was not installed during the repairs of the building.
She said, “The refurbishment on the law building was to replace the roof and deal with wear and tear from being locked down for two plus years.” She continued by saying 78% of students opted to stay online following the Covid-19 pandemic.
