Guyana’s capacity to test DNA samples is expected to be optimised within the next few months, as the Home Affairs Ministry awaits validation of newly sourced equipment.
Home Affairs Minister, Robeson Benn shared with the media on Thursday that the current equipment needs to undergo testing in order to solidify DNA processing capacity. However, the laboratory is working round the clock and a rapid testing device is also functional.
“We have new equipment – a rapid test one which is already operational. The other one is also operational but it has to go through for a couple of months, validation testing in relation to the different types of samples that it would be working on. That machine is more complicated but more efficient in terms of larger batches and the quality of results it would produce…I think within three, four months based on the validation requirement,” Benn disclosed.
He reminded that there was a “misstep” in the previous acquisition of equipment under the former administration, where DNA testing units was sourced for the laboratory. While the devices weren’t the ‘most efficacious’, the company also ceased its existence. As such, it was installed in Guyana but reagents could not be sourced.
Tested locally & overseas
Meanwhile, in the case of the skeletal remains of Police Constable Quincy Lewis which were unearthed last week, Minister Benn shared that the DNA samples will be tested both in Guyana and overseas. This process is to avoid any obstacles during prosecution in the court, until the equipment is certified.
The Minister explained, “It will be tested but for surety, we are going to send samples. We’re still in a couple months of validation testing for the big machine. We will send those samples to a laboratory overseas which has a machine of that kind up and running.”
After almost three years of mystery, detectives found the skeletal remains believed to be those of Lewis in a shallow grave in a sandpit at Madewini, along the Soesdyke/Linden Highway. This was after intensive interrogation of two suspects who allegedly admitted that they had known about the killing of the officer.
The GPF has since said that it intends to use all legal avenues to ensure that the other two suspects, who were named in the murder, be extradited to Guyana to answer to the allegations in relation to Lewis’s death.
Fifty-six-year-old Thakurdyal Samaroo and his wife Youseef Zahid, also known as Naqueeba Zahid Zafarali, of Lot 7 Ogle Front, East Coast Demerara, are wanted for questioning in relation to this heinous crime.
