Commission of inquiry needed to probe fire
Kaieteur News
December 28, 2004
Some great tragedy seems to always strike at Christmastime. It may be so because this is the season of goodwill and everything seems so fine that human tragedies occurring over or in the run-up to the holidays assume magnified proportions. After all, tragedies do occur all year round; but especially at Christmastime they tend to shock us all.
South East Asia is presently reeling from the effects of a devastating earthquake and tidal storms, with over 20,000 killed so far. Christmastime for those affected has been nothing but a nightmare. People who barely had anything at all, now find themselves in further suffering.
If you trace back our history in Guyana, there have been an equal amount of mind-numbing tragedies occurring at this time. From deaths caused by motor vehicle accidents, shocking murders to fires. This year again has seen another fire - one of the landmark buildings in our country, the Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church, along with one of the country's premier primary schools. On top of that, the poor drainage system in the city has forced the cancellation of the Main Big Lime, one of the big attractions of the tourism ministry. And yet the government continues to put money into the coffers of City Hall.
Last year, just before Christmas, there was a towering inferno that destroyed another landmark in Guyana - the old Sandbach Parker building. At the time, the severe constraints facing local fire fighters were revealed by the absence of a fireboat owned by the fire service.
One year before, the old Auto Supplies building, another historic structure had gone up in flames just before the holiday season began. This year, just when it seemed that we would have an incident free Christmas, tragedy struck with the destruction of the church and school.
I recall after last year's fire, questions were asked about the functioning of fire hydrants. I recall reading a report about how costly and difficult it would be to fix the existing hydrants in the country and how a better option would be more equipment. I had intended to write criticising this recommendation because it makes no sense to bring in more vehicles if water cannot be sourced easily at the scene of fires.
Peeping Tom was not on site at the time of the fire and so cannot make an informed assessment of the response of the fire service. However, when I did manage to visit the scene over the long holiday weekend, the few onlookers were highly critical of the response time. I even heard C. N. Sharma say on television that when he got to the scene there were no fire tenders and only smoke could be seen. By the time he returned after collecting his camera from home, he said, the fire had taken over the building.
With Sharma you have to read between the lines. As we say in Guyana, where there is smoke there has to be fire, so even though Sharma may have only been seeing black smoke, the origin of that smoke would have been a raging fire.
The President went overboard this year and paid a one month's bonus to policemen, soldiers and fire fighters. Very few people will have problems supporting the bonus for the police, but by what measure does the army and fire service deserve a bonus ahead of our nurses and teachers? With this recent fire there is going to be further questions as to why exactly did the President decide to pay the bonus to the fire service.
I am sure that public servants, who would have worked equally as hard as the disciplined services and would have had to settle for a meager 5% increase, would have been miffed by the extra bonus to the disciplined services. And I am sure that there are deep concerns that the President is simply doling out money like this without parliamentary approval for specific causes. But I can assure you that the opposition PNCR is not going to object to this bonus payment made to the disciplined services. And you need not ask why?
What the opposition should immediately press for is a public commission of inquiry into the Christmas Day fire, which resulted in the destruction of that church and school. The commission should inquire as to the response of the fire service as well as to the capability of the local fire service and the functioning of fire hydrants. We cannot continue to have these disastrous fires in our country and very little being done to improve our fire fighting skills.
Hundreds of schoolchildren are now without a school.
The least they deserve is an inquiry as to what can be done to prevent some calamities in the future.