The Guyana Police Force will be receiving 50 new pickups which were procured by the Government of Guyana through its capital expenditure.
The vehicles will be officially handed over on Friday to the police by the government.
BIG Smith Smith News Watch has been informed that a system is now in place that could see and is aimed, at ensuring that this new fleet lasts longer than previous fleet received by the force.
One of the main issue and concern for the force over the years is the limited vehicular resources which forced the organisation to have vehicle operating without proper resting period.
Once a vehicle was assigned to be worked during one shift, when another shift turns out to work, that shift would also use the said vehicle to continue patrol duties the previous shift was conducting.
That sort of arrangement provided little or no rest period or cooling of engines of the vehicle and that has over the years played a significant part in the destruction and mechanical problems with force issued vehicles.
We were also told that systems are now being considered by the force where police ranks who drive vehicles belonging to state, will have to fix those vehicles once they cause any damage to them. Ranks who leave the force after damaging the vehicles will have lawsuits coming their way so that the state can have their vehicles fixed or the money to replace the damage or totalled vehicle.
The last large fleet of vehicles the Guyana Police Received was back in 2018 from a company in China which was closing down its operations.
The vehicles were accepted by Guyana as a donation with the full understanding that since the company which manufactured the vehicles was closing down, parts for the vehicle will not be available once the vehicles go down.
It is for that reason that several of the those vehicles which were given to the force back in 2018 are now parked up in workshops in an inoperable state.
These new vehicles to be handed over tomorrow will be distributed to various police division based on a number of considerations and the needs of each individual divisions.