Six months after a fire gutted the section of the Police headquarters that housed its Office of Professional Responsibility, the Guyana Fire Service is still to release the findings of its investigations, although the probe was completed months ago.
On Monday, as the Acting Fire Chief Gregory Wickham was overlooking the Fire Service dousing another blaze in another section of the Police headquarters, he was questioned by News Source about the probe into the previous incident.
The Fire Chief said while the investigation has been completed, there is still a procedure that needs to be followed before the release of the findings.
“I am certain that the investigation was completed but the information as it relates to the cause of that fire, I am not in a position to relay that at this point…because procedures have to followed”, Mr. Wickham said.
Further pressed about the long time that it is taking the Fire Service to make its findings public, the acting Fire Chief maintained that there are still procedures that need to be followed before the release, while not indicating the type of procedures.
“I wouldn’t want to say that we are on the backfoot and particularly because of the fire you are referring to, but there are procedures that need to be followed, and investigation work always sometimes, investigators come up with the cause of the fire very early and then there are other times when there is a system that needs to be followed and it will take a little longer to come up with the cause of the fire, so generally there is no time limit or timespan given as to when the cause of a fire is to be established”, Wickham told reporters.
He denied that he has been prevented from releasing the findings of the report and insisted that the Fire Department will release the information regarding the cause of the fire.
News Source understands that the preliminary investigations into the fire ruled out arson as investigators found evidence linking the start of the fire to electrical wiring problems that existed in the building.
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