Chinese firms among companies now bidding to rebuild gutted Brickdam Police Station

– companies building new DHB, St Roses also submit bids

After a number of rounds of bidding to design and reconstruct the Brickdam Police Station, dating from last year, Chinese firms Shandong High-Speed Dejian Group Company Ltd and China Railway Construction Caribbean Company Ltd (CRCCC) are among the new bidders vying to design and reconstruct the Brickdam Police Station.
According to bids that were opened at the offices of the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB), there was also a partnership between a local and a Chinese company; namely, R Bassoo and Son Construction, in association with Qing Jian Group Company Guyana Incorporated, bidding for the project.
CRCCC is no stranger to Guyana. It has, in fact, been currently engaged to build what will be the single largest public infrastructure project in Guyana’s history: the US$260 million landmark new Demerara River Bridge that would link the East and West Bank corridors of Demerara.
Shandong High-Speed Dejian Group also currently has a $515 million contract to reconstruct the St. Roses High School, located at Church and Camp Streets. Like the Brickdam Police Station, St. Roses was gutted by fire.
Among the other companies that have submitted bids for the project are Nabi Construction Incorporated, which has been involved in a number of local projects, including construction of the ExxonMobil Guyana office campus at Ogle, East Coast Demerara (ECD). Its partner in this project is the Trinidadian company KCL Oilfield Construction Services.
Respective bids for the project to construct the Brickdam Police Station have also been submitted by Adams Project Management and Construction Limited and by BM Property Investment Incorporated.
The project is being administered by the Ministry of Home Affairs, and a whopping $58.6 billion has this year been budgeted for the security sector. Included in this amount is a $2.4 billion allocation for construction of Command Centres in Regions Two, Three, Five, Six, and 10.
It has been noted that works have already commenced on construction of the CID Headquarters, Special Constabulary Headquarters, Tactical Services Unit Headquarters; living quarters at Beterverwagting and Cove and John; Police Stations at Baramita, Den Amstel, Tuschen, Mocha, Sparendaam, Rose Hall, Imbaimadai, Eteringbang, Annai, Lethem, and Karasabai. And it has been announced that works would commence this year on reconstruction of the Brickdam Police Station, which was destroyed by fire back in 2021.
Home Affairs Minister Robeson Benn said in 2021 that a modern Police Station Complex would be constructed at Brickdam. In Budget 2022, an allocation of $405 million was set aside for this purpose. It has been announced that the Home Affairs Ministry would be engaging in consultations to determine the structural composition of that building.
On October 2, 2021, a fire devastated the wooden complex which used to be the Brickdam Police Station. Chase Green, a man who was arrested for robbery-under-arms, has since been remanded to prison for setting fire to the Brickdam Police Station. That fire, which started in the second storey of the administrative building, destroyed some 80 per cent of the Police Station, and Police Headquarters have said that Green confessed to starting the fire.
Green reportedly confessed that he took a piece of sponge and wrapped it on a piece of wire, which he lit and pushed through a ventilation hole in the cell over to a part that had some documents. It was from there that the fire started. (G-8)