On the heels of the anniversary of devastating Camp Street Prison Fire and Riot, Prison Director, Gladwin Samuels on Friday confirmed that the re-construction details of the Georgetown Penitentiary have been finalised.
“Efforts are being made in order to do a re-construction of the faiclty. As the Minister [of Public Security, Khemraj Ramjattan] would have alluded to some time back, the method that we’re using for the re-construction of the Camp Street [Prison] for the accommodation of prisoners will be done using three parts. These will be done with the use of pre-fabricated cells…We have recently finalised all of the construction details for those cells. So steel cells should commence…will be delivered to Guyana within 2018,” he explained.
According to the Prison Director, upon re-construction, the facility will accommodate a total of 60 new steel cells, which is expected to house some 180 “hard-code criminals”.
“Sixty cells have [to be] constructed. 20 cells will be allotted to each part as the divisions are called, and each cell will accommodate 3 prisoners so that the facility that they will be constructing initially will accommodate 180 prisoners. Those prisoners, based on our segregation, we will be looking at the high risk prisoners to be relocated there,” he asserted.
Samuels further revealed that prison officials in the process of finding suitable contractors to complete the rehabilitation works.
“All things being equal, we should be going to tender at the end of this month, we should be going to tender at the end of this month in order to have those works allocated to the suitable contractors in order to have those works executed,” he noted.
Meanwhile, he also mentioned that the expansion of the Mazaruni Prison is moving full steam ahead.
Some $1.5B was awarded in the 2018 budget for the expansion and rehabilitation of the prison infrastructure.
