Bids invited for police station at Parfaite Harmonie

The Ministry of Public Security is inviting bids for the construction of a police station in Parfaite Harmonie, West Bank Demerara.

Residents of the community have made calls over the years for the construction of a police station there.

The advertisement in yesterday’s Sunday Chronicle stated that the engineer’s estimate for the construction of the Police Station is $63 million.

Bidding will be conducted through the National Competitive Bidding (NCB) procedure specified in the Procurement Act 2003 and is open to all bidders.

Persons who are interested may inspect the bidding document and obtain further information from the Finance Department of the Ministry of Public Security at Lot 6, Brickdam, Stabroek. All bids must be addressed to the Chairman of the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board of the Ministry of Finance on Main and Urquhart streets before 9 am on May 2. In October last year, residents had renewed their calls for a police station to be built in the community after they complained about adults preying on schoolgirls and other issues during a meeting with Minister of Public Security, Khemraj Ramjattan. According to a Department of Public Information report, Ramjattan had told the residents that it was too late in the year for a police station to be included in the 2018 budget. He then recommended that a community policing group be established in the interim.

“We need one quick and I glad. Every day or every other day you always hearing about somebody house get break into or somebody robbing somebody on the road and I think having a police station in here and more patrols is going to help that.

The nearest one is till on the public road and that’s a little distance. This community big, big and its time we get one so we looking forward to that,” a resident related to Stabroek News yesterday.

In addition to the construction of the Parfaite Harmonie Police Station, the Ministry also invited bids for the rehabilitation of the Matthews Ridge Police Station in Region 1, which is pegged at $40.5 million; the rehabilitation of the Lethem Police Station in Region 9 that is set at $54 million; the rehabilitation of the Springlands Police Station and the Central Police Station in Region 6, which will cost $24 million and $34 million respectively; and the rehabilitation of the Divisional Headquarters in Cove and John, Region 4, which is pegged at $34 million.

Additionally, other rehabilitation works are also slated for various buildings of the police force including: the Mounted Branch Steel Band building, the Female Barracks and Impact Base at Eve Leary, the #1 and #2 Living Quarters in the Mounted Branch compound, the Whim Barracks, the Lewis Manor Outpost in B Division and the Living Quarters at the Albion Police Station, among others.