Expressing disappointment in the Guyana Fire Service’s (GFS) “poor at best” response to the fire which ravaged the Brickdam Police Station yesterday, President Irfaan Ali this morning blasted firefighters and warned that their lax approach will not be tolerated.
“The response of the fire service was poor, at its best, yesterday, and as President, I hope that the fire service can acknowledge this because if you can’t acknowledge the problem, you can’t deal with it,” the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Services said following a visit to the scene.
Shortly after 11am yesterday, the fire started in the upper flat of an eastern building in the compound, according to Commissioner of Police Nigel Hoppie. About two hour later, nearly 80% of the structures in the compound were destroyed.
Ali said that with the fire occurring a stone’s throw away from the GPF’s main station at Stabroek, it was appalling to see the response from firefighters.
“This is less than three minutes walk to a main fire station. We cannot continue as a country and as a people to not address these issues. We can’t continue to make investments and not have the return on the investments. Whether it is in the public service, in the hospitals, the inefficiency has to be weeded out. If you don’t want to perform public service then do the honourable thing, don’t take a job in the fire department and believe it is a part time job,” he emphasied.
Pointing to the “hundreds of millions of dollars” spent on the Fire Service over the years, Ali said they should be ashamed of their response. “To put it crudely, you can’t even respond to an event in your backyard. And the response is not about assets you know, the response is about attitude and commitment and discipline and professionalism and it is about being in a state of readiness…I am publicly putting the Fire Service on warning, this cannot and will not be tolerated,” he stressed.
