Remedial works at Brickdam lock-ups finally completed

Following prolonged delays to remedial works on the Brickdram Police Station’s lock-ups, the facility is finally completed, Public Security Minister Khemraj Ramjattan said on Friday.
“I understand the Brickdam lock-ups here has been completed and it’s a handing over exercise that we are waiting on,” the Minister told reporters during a press conference when he was asked for an update on the works at the facility.
Ramjattan had previously described the prolonged delays of the remedial works as an embarrassment.
“That has been a major embarrassment for me because the monies were there and construction works (were done but) the design of it is a problem,” he had stated back in February.
The condition of the Brickdam lock-ups has come in for much scrutiny and criticisms over the years. This resulted in the city’s main detention facility undergoing a major overhaul back in 2009, when some $14.4 million was expended to rehabilitate the once smelly and unsightly facility that was once referred to as a ‘dungeon, horrible’ by a Commission of Inquiry several years prior.
However, because of the design flaws of those renovations, more monies had to be pumped back into the project to correct the flaws, which had to do with air ventilation. Ramjattan had previously explained that with any prison systems, the construction has to be of a specific design, especially as it relates to air circulation. But the contractor had indicated that with the monies allocated for the initial project, he could have only done works in accordance to the flawed design.
“You have to have a perfect design that will aerate if you’re not going to make it air conditioned and there was some problems with that initial design… It was done to specifications; but when it was done to specifications, we can’t put prisoners in there, we gonna kill them. So now we have to have remedial works,” he had stated.
Nevertheless, monies were allocated in the 2016 Budget to carry out the remedial works on the facility but there were some issues regarding the tendering process, which further detailed the process.
The National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB) had found that the three contractors who tendered for the project were non-responsive. As such, the flawed tenders went back to the Evaluation Committee, which then returned them to the respective bidders with indications of where they were they were “non-responsive”. However, only one of the three bidders re-tendered and was awarded the contract months later.
Meanwhile, acting Top Cop David Ramnarine, back in 2016 had lamented that the facility was a “travesty” to law enforcement efforts in A Division (Georgetown-East Bank Demerara), saying that it is affecting the work of the Police in that Division.
“The burden of shifting serious crimes suspects to other lock-ups on a daily basis is one we have been bearing with tremendous patience of the years. I wish to take this opportunity to urge the officials concerned to spare no efforts to realise this much needed facility in the capital city of Georgetown,” Ramnarine had implored.
The scope of works of phase one of the initial contract entailed fumigating the lock-ups environment, demolition and alteration to metal doors, rehabilitation of the existing steel grills and door framings, rehabilitation of the enquiries area and redoing of defective concrete works which were followed by a process of plastering.
There was also the demolition of exiting plumbing works and restoration of plumbing to each of the 15 cells that were rehabilitated, as well as constructing a concrete reservoir and concrete trestle, which supports six new water tanks, and tiling of the floors and walls of the lockups.
The latter phase included the installation of 15 penal style toilets for each cell at a cost of US$700 each. There was also the fabrication and installation of 42 metal bunks and rehabilitation of the holding area grill and construction of seating accommodation. It also entailed the tiling and painting of the enquiries staff area, including toilet and bath and painting of the general facility.