The Guyana Defence Force yesterday announced that it has launched an investigation into the disappearance of two items from the main stores of the headquarters of the Engineer’s Battalion.

In a statement yesterday the army said a $1.2M “total station” which is a modern piece of equipment used for inland surveying as well as a power saw bar were reported missing during the Christmas season.

Stabroek News was reliably informed that a number of ranks from the Engineer’s Department at Base Camp Stephenson, Timehri, were escorted to Camp Ayanganna in Georgetown where the investigations are ongoing.
This newspaper was also told that many of the ranks were questioned and then released as the investigators have come nowhere close to determining where the items may have gone. The  statement said the investigations are still incomplete.

Thirty AK-47 rifles and five pistols went missing from the GDF armory in 2006 and while officers were court-martialed over the matter, ascertaining exactly how the weapons got out of the army’s  headquarters in Georgetown is still a mystery. On another occasion, another Ak-47 went missing and the subsequent interrogations led to charges of torture being levelled by some soldiers against members of an army unit.