The Commission of Inquiry into the Mahdia dormitory fire of May 21 that claimed 20 lives wrapped up yesterday with counsel, Keoma Griffith castigating the Chief Fire Officer and a regional education official.
A report of its work is to be presented to President Irfaan Ali. Hearings began on September 15th at its Middle Street location.
Griffith yesterday concluded that supporting evidence reveals that the Mahdia secondary dorm was maliciously set on fire and that the act was committed by an individual.
Griffith, during his closing presentation, acknowledged that while he was constrained in his comments concerning the cause of the fire, the evidence before the commission, supports several findings. Namely, 1) The fire was not caused by electrical malfunctions associated with the building. 2) The cause of the fire was malicious in nature, and 3) the fire was caused by an individual.
“There is sufficient evidence before this commission to come to a finding and to address those three issues which I have identified,” Griffith told the commission.
The attorney-at-law noted that the factors outlined are sufficient for the inquiry to make a decision in light of these findings.
Chief Fire Officer (ag) Gregory Wickham and former Regional Education Officer for Region Eight, Annesta Douglas, were ‘raked over the coals’ for their inactiveness towards the dire need for fire prevention supplies at the Mahdia Secondary School dorm as was recommended in a fire inspection report by Sub-Officer Ryan Scott of the Mahdia Fire Station.
The counsel expressed dissatisfaction at the manner in which the subject was treated since many lives were at stake.
“It is appalling that the CFO [Chief Fire Officer] only acknowledged one out of the 12 recommendations in Officer Scott’s report, one of 12 recommendations and lives were at stake here,” Griffith lamented.
“It is my view and I will put forward to the Commission to really examine how effective the Chief Fire Officer was in these circumstances in light of his 30 years’ experience.”
“Of course, 12 recommendations were outlined and he [the Fire Chief] told this inquiry that he acted on only one of those 12 recommendations and requirements in the interest of saving lives, property and fire prevention.”
“Mr Wickham didn’t think that it was important to install fire alarm systems, smoke detection systems, or any of these things but what was ensured that GWI was aware of its duty to regularize the water main system from four to six inches for the fire hydrants to have access to pressurized water”, he said.
Sub-Officer Scott had submitted the report to both the Chief Fire Officer, and former Regional Education Officer on February 7, after inspections were done on both the male and female dorms, which housed approximately 132 children along with the male and female dorm wardens
In that report, Scott highlighted that the dorms lacked fire alarm systems, smoke detectors, exit signs, and insufficient fire extinguishers.
According to the Commission’s Counsel, prior to the time of the inferno which claimed 20 lives, disinterest was shown by Wickham in relation to following up on whether the dorm was equipped with the proposed amenities.
“The CFO could have followed up with GWI, but no he did not, did he take any steps afterwards to ensure that facilities were in place, no he did not, no interest was shown.”
“It speaks volumes because the Chief Fire Officer was not compliant with the other recommendations, which I find appalling.”
Directing his attention to the former ReDO of Region Eight (Potaro Siparuni), Griffith noted that the Regional Education Officer confirmed that she received the report which was delivered by Scott where he urged her that the report required an urgent response.
“Miss Douglas told the presidential inquiry into the Mahdia dormitory fire that it was impossible for her to review a key report submitted by the Guyana Fire Service (GFS) months before the blaze since she was given just one week’s notice to depart for Georgetown.”
Griffith said that while he empathised with Douglas for the frustration and trauma, she had endured due to her job reassignment, the former regional education officer could have found some way to inform her superiors of the report so that issues could have been ventilated and possibly resolved since the report was simply placed on her desk.
“While I empathize with Ms. Douglas for what she went through, and maybe no public servant should have to go through that, duty and service to the children and the students of Region Eight required Ms. Douglas to put her situation aside even for one second to bring attention to her superiors or any other persons, it could be her juniors, to bring the attention of that report to someone else”, Griffith asserted.
The report which highlighted the inadequacies at the Mahdia secondary school dormitory was deemed as a matter of urgency by Scott, but the ReDO admitted that she did not read the report due her preoccupation with other work-related tasks.
Griffth also informed that another report compiled by Scott on the state of the Mahdia Fire station at the time, and the urgent need for firefighting equipment and repairs to the fire tender saw little or no action being taken by the Fire Chief.
The attorney concluded that what Wickham and Douglas clearly demonstrated was a dereliction of their duties.
The MOE-UNICEF Report
The Inquiry’s counsel also directed the commission to the Ministry of Education’s report funded by UNICEF on the state of dormitories in Guyana where 24 dormitories were listed for immediate remediation.
Griffth referenced that while top five of the 24 dorms were dubbed as “major priorities,” appallingly, the Mahdia school dorm was not ranked as a “major priority” in the wake of its known deficiencies.
According to the terms of reference of the MOE/UNICEF report, the standards for dormitories are as follows:
• floor spacing per child/adult across all living quarters – e.g., dining /sleeping /laundry and kitchen spaces, communal study area; sports facility living quarters for dormitory parents.
• Recommendations for the utilisation of green technologies, access to sustainable water resources and safe sanitation methods, and the usage of local materials and skills as well as PV solar power where possible.
• Human resources requirements for every aspect of dormitory life – e.g., house parents; cooks; welfare officers/counsellors; ancillary staff.
• financial implications for meeting comprehensive standards across the dormitory plant.
Chief Education Officer (CEO) Saddam Hussein during his testimony at the COI had said, “The dorms did not become what they are in 2020. It was a long series of neglect which positioned the dorms to where they are. This neglect which made us say that look, one of the first things we are going to do in 2021 to 2025 as part of our education sector plan is, we are going to look at what the dorms are. We are going to first of all, get a minimal set of standards of what they are and we are going to find out how far we are from those standards. That is what the Ministry of Education’s Report, funded by UNICEF (not a UNICEF report) is. It is a Ministry of Education report, funded by UNICEF”.
“… this Report is more than 15 years in the making. This is not something new.”
He went on to add, “We are very fortunate in that we have the particular Minister of Education right now, the Hon. Priya Manickchand. What had happened is, in Minister’s previous capacity as the head of social services, she had done a similar report to look at the minimum standards for orphanages and care-giving homes. When she came to the Ministry of Education, when the hon. minister came to Education, she wanted to look at the same thing in terms of dormitory facilities. It started between 2011-2014. Of course, there was a change in government, and that was not a part of the priority of that Government. It then resuscitated. The idea resuscitated in August, 2020. I am aware, in November, 2020 we sat in a meeting and the hon. minister said, as a priority, she wants part of our education sector plan for the next five years, we are going to look at dormitory facilities.”
He explained, “What we did, and you will find in my statement, I quoted from the education sector plan, the objective and what we intended to do. We wanted to know two things. We wanted to know the current standard of the dorms and we wanted to know what we needed to do, and the costing as well of getting there. Once it was in the sector plan and it was in the budget for the consultancy, the consultant began working on it in late 2021.”
The CEO added: “….. following that Report, immediately systems began to be put in place for the implementation and the subsequent renovations to the dorms. What has to be understood is, the costing of this Report is close to about three billion Guyana dollars, that had to be found in order to fix all of the dorms. This was middle of 2022. Budget had already passed and so there was not a $3 billion lying around that you could just pull and renovate…. I think this is something which is missed. Let us say, for the sake of argument that in September, 2022, we began the process of renovating all the dorms. What do I do with the occupants of the dorms? This was the professional decision which was tendered to the Minister and the Government of Guyana. You cannot take out all the students from the dorms and just let them be. We felt it was a better option to gradually repair the dorms….
…. That very Report says that Mahdia was not one of the top priorities to be addressed. In fact, Mahdia had one issue and that is with a constant supply of electricity and water… I am advised through two sources that the Report was shared with Cabinet – one, I attended a number of budgetary meetings. And so, from those meetings, I gathered that this document was laid to the Cabinet. I also…. was copied to an email which suggested to me that the Report was made…was laid… was copied to the Minister of Finance, as well as to the Minister of Local Government and from that, I gathered that it was laid in Cabinet… it was laid to the Cabinet. I also gathered from the email that there was immediate…there was an immediate decision by Cabinet to move ahead with the correction of those things that needed to be done. I can say at this point…. I could add at this point, up to today, $882 million has been expended on dorms from 2022 to current. By the end of the year, we expect to touch a billion dollars because we are still awaiting a number of awards for these dorms…” Hussein told the inquiry on October 10.
Griffith reminded the inquiry that the report even gave figures of how these recommendations can be implemented considering the state of the Mahdia Secondary school dorm.
“The report noted that the cost for full compliance with the report was to the tune of $3 billion now like every other citizen, I would ask why $3 billion was not expended on the development of this dorm spending.”
“But I was made to understand that that several procurement procedures had to be followed and it does not work like that but be reminded that this report was submitted in May 2022 Outside of the budgeting cycle for that year.”.
“The Chief Education Officer explained that there was some difficulty or he would have been in acquiring this $3 billion to comply with the report”, the Counsel informed.
Now that all public hearings are concluded, Griffith yesterday submitted the compiled report of findings to the Presidential Inquiry for their examination.
The Terms of Reference (TOR) for the CoI published on August 15, 2023, mandates the commissioners to: (1) inquire and report on the events and circumstances leading up to and causes of the Mahdia dorm fire on the night of May 20th, 2023. (2) inquire into and report upon the actions taken to provide swift care, medical attention and other forms of support and aid to families of the injured and deceased victims and (3) make recommendations and observations as may be deemed fit which includes measures and actions that the commission may consider necessary to prevent recurrences of such a tragedy.
The CoI was Chaired by Major General (rtd) Joe Singh and also included attorney-at-law Kim Kyte-Thomas and Chairman of the National Toshaos Council Derrick John.
