Legal Affairs and Justice Minister Prakash Ramadhar says the lengthy procurement process caused a delay in Government’s acquisition of specific electronic equipment for the nation’s prisons.
Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar had said in 2013 the Government would seek to acquire jammers and grabbers to deal with the use of mobile phones by prisoners in T&T’s jails.
However, the initiative is yet to be implemented and has been causing anxiety in the wake of several attacks on prisons officers and last week’s incident in which Allan “Scanny” Martin, Hassan Atwell and Christopher Selby escaped from the Port-of-Spain prison.
Speaking with the T&T Guardian yesterday, Ramadhar said they were hoping to implement the electronic security upgrade at the nation’s prisons but said the process was taking longer than expected.
He said the jammers and grabbers proposal was “a highly technical piece of equipment and we went through the normal process for procurement.” He added as far as he was concerned, however, the procurement process was “too long.”
“As a result of the delays in the procurement of, not just that, but for full body scanners and other electronics, the Prime Minister appointed a crime and justice sub-committee to try and unlock the gridlock,” Ramadhar said.
He said since becoming chairman of the Cabinet sub-committee dealing with the issue in February they had advanced and accelerated procurement efforts.
He said, however, that he was very dissatisfied with the length of the processes used by state agencies “in terms of reports and the actual consideration of technical reports, advice and the procurement process itself.”
Asked how soon he expected to get the equipment, he said: “Within two months we shall have everything on the ground and operational. Things will be far better in a short period of time than they have been for more than a decade.