A World-Class Claim Meets a Callous Reality

592 GUARDIAN♦ACCOUNTABILITY♦INTEGRITY IN JOURNALISM♦GUYANA

A World-Class Claim Meets a Callous Reality

OPINION BY : Hem Kumar October 2026

The most damning testimony before the Commission of Inquiry into the MV “Barima disaster did not come from a hostile critic of the Government. It came from the Commander of the Guyana Defense Force Coast Guard himself. Commander David Shamsudeen reportedly told the Commission that joint search-and-rescue exercises had not been conducted “in a while” because there was “no need for it.” Pressed by Commission Chairman Justice Godfrey Smith on whether that was truly his position, the Commander confirmed it: Guyana had not had such an incident, therefore there was no need for the exercise.

That answer should alarm every Guyanese.

Search-and-rescue exercises are not held because disaster has already occurred. They are held because disaster can occur at any time. They are designed to ensure that, when lives are at risk at sea, agencies do not meet for the first time in the middle of darkness, bad weather, panic, confused communications and mounting casualties.

To say there was “no need” for joint training because no major disaster had recently occurred turns emergency preparedness upside down. It treats prevention as optional, readiness as unnecessary and training as a luxury to be considered only after tragedy has exposed the consequences of its absence.

That is not preparedness. It is complacency.

A Commander’s Own Evidence

The testimony becomes even more disturbing when placed beside the Commander’s reported acknowledgement that the Coast Guard’s standard operating procedures were not updated during his three-year tenure, and that he was unfamiliar with the specific International Aeronautical and Maritime Search and Rescue manual and how it applies in Guyana

.No citizen should have to hear that a Coast Guard commander, leading a service responsible for maritime response, could not point to current operational procedures, regular joint exercises and familiarity with the internationally recognized framework specifically developed for aeronautical and maritime search-and-rescue coordination.

The IAMSAR framework exists because maritime disasters do not announce themselves politely. Distress alerts, missing vessels, survivors in the water, severe weather, night operations, communications failures, uncertain coordinates and multiple agencies are precisely the conditions in which prior training, tested procedures and coordinated command structures matter most.

A country does not wait for a catastrophe to learn how to manage one.

The MV Barima inquiry has already heard evidence that distress coordinates were relayed to the Coast Guard within minutes of the initial satellite alert. It has also heard that the wreck was formally located more than 39 hours after the first coordinates were received. Those are matters for the Commission to assess fully and fairly, but they underline why a nation cannot approach emergency coordination casually.

Seven Years of Offshore Oil

This is where the contradiction becomes impossible to ignore.

Guyana became an oil-producing state on 20 December 2019, when the Liza Destiny began production offshore. Since then, offshore oil activity has transformed the country’s economy, expanded its international profile and placed growing numbers of workers, vessels and critical facilities in the maritime environment.

Yet, by the Commander’s own account, there was supposedly no need during his three-year tenure to conduct a joint search-and-rescue exercise.

♦ No need—despite offshore production.

♦ No need—despite foreign and Guyanese workers operating far from shore.

♦ No need—despite supply vessels, helicopters, support craft, commercial fishing, passenger boats and cargo traffic sharing Guyana’s waters.

♦ No need—despite the obvious prospect of an offshore medical emergency, fire, collision, evacuation, man-overboard incident, aviation mishap, severe-weather event or oil-sector emergency.

What exactly does the Government mean when it speaks of building a “world-class” Guyana?

A world-class country does not merely acquire oil revenues, modern buildings, international conferences and expensive public-relations slogans. A world-class country builds competent institutions. It trains its responders before lives are lost. It keeps standard operating procedures current. It knows the international rules. It tests communication systems. It practises unified command. It reviews its failures honestly and corrects them urgently.

A world-class country does not tell its people that emergency training was unnecessary because the emergency had not happened yet.

Questions That Demand Answers

The CoI must be allowed to complete its work without prejudice, and no final finding should be made before all evidence is examined. But the testimony already disclosed raises urgent public-interest questions that cannot be brushed aside.

The Government, the Guyana Defense Force and the Coast Guard must tell the country:

♦ When was the last full joint national search-and-rescue exercise involving the Coast Guard, Air Corps, Maritime Administration Department, port authorities, police, civil defense, health authorities, private maritime operators and offshore oil-sector stakeholders?

♦ If no such exercise was held during Commander Shamsudeen’s three-year tenure, who decided that one was unnecessary?

♦ What current Coast Guard SOP governs a major maritime emergency, and when was it last reviewed, revised and tested?

♦ Does Guyana have a functioning national maritime search-and-rescue plan, and is it aligned with IAMSAR standards?

♦ Which agency has lead responsibility for coordinating a mass-casualty maritime event?

♦ How many Coast Guard officers have been trained in IAMSAR procedures, incident command and multi-agency search coordination?

♦ What readiness obligations are imposed on offshore operators and contractors, and when were they last tested jointly with Guyanese emergency services?

♦ Will the Government publish a timetable for regular, independently assessed national SAR exercises?

These are not partisan questions. They are life-and-death questions.

The People Deserve Better

The men and women who work offshore deserve to know that, if an emergency happens, Guyana has a trained, rehearsed and coordinated response—not an improvised one.

Passengers who use river and coastal transport deserve to know that distress alerts will trigger a system that has been tested before—not a chain of agencies forced to discover their roles after a vessel sinks.

Families deserve to know that public authorities have treated preparedness as a duty, not an afterthought.

And Guyanese taxpayers deserve to know how a country transformed by oil wealth could allow a critical national security and public-safety function to operate without regular joint exercises, updated procedures and a demonstrated command familiarity with core search-and-rescue standards.

The revelation is a callous embarrassment. It punctures the rhetoric of “world-class” development and exposes a far more troubling possibility: that Guyana is building wealth faster than it is building institutional competence.

The MV Barima tragedy must not be reduced to another cycle of condolences, hearings, promises and official defensiveness. It must force a national reckoning.

Preparedness is not measured by what leaders say after lives are lost. It is measured by what they ordered, funded, trained, tested and audited before the emergency came.