Minister of Home Affairs Clement Rohee has revealed that the Guyana Police Force’s Forensic laboratory is nearing completion. The physical work on the building is virtually completed and the installation of equipment by a Barbadian team is now in process, the Minister said.
This includes putting in shelves, the security features and other pieces of hardware that have arrived in the country and had to be calibrated. Calibration of equipment that goes into the lab has to be done almost instantaneously, Minister Rohee said.
“The lab is almost completed, the technical aspect is what is being done now, to make this lab fully functional, and we have been given the assurance by the persons who are doing this work that by the third week in October these highly technical jobs will be completed,” Minister Rohee said.
In April 2011, Government signed a contract valued $450M with Courtney Benn Contracting Services for the construction of the lab. The project is funded by the Inter American Development Bank in partnership with the Guyana Government, and is expected to greatly enhance the investigative capabilities of the Guyana Police Force. The ministry has already hired all the staff for the lab.
With regards to DNA testing at the facility, Minister Rohee said, “we have been asked by the Office of the President to work towards building capacity in the lab to facilitate DNA testing so we have been given that directive. What we have decided is to complete what we have set out to do in accordance with the plan for the completion of the lab, because we do not want to delay further the commissioning of the laboratory.”
He said the Home Affairs Ministry will achieve what it has started out to do and on completion of this project, and with the staff in place, will move to the next stage of looking at ways and means of incorporating in the functioning of the lab, DNA testing.
