Big Talk at the Marriott, Unanswered Questions on the Water

592GUARDIAN♦ACCOUNTABILITY♦INTEGRITY IN JOURNALISM♦GUYANA

Big Talk at the Marriott, Unanswered Questions on the Water

OPINION BY : Hem Kumar October 2026

Ramsaroop sells a maritime future.Indar demands a maritime crackdown. Both must confront the credibility crisis at home. At the Marriott, Guyana is a maritime powerhouse in the making. At the MV Barima inquiry, the country is still being asked to explain the fundamentals. That is the gulf between the government’s conference presentation and the public’s demand for accountability

Peter Ramsaroop offers the vision: modern ports, Guyanese-owned vessels, shipbuilding, dry docking, regional distribution networks and maritime infrastructure serving future industries.

Deodat Indar supplies the enforcement message: Caribbean countries must unite against fraudulent vessel registrations and the illegal use of national flags. Guyana, he says, has itself been a victim.

One sells the opportunity. The other demands compliance.

Neither message should be allowed to float above the troubling questions emerging from Guyana’s own maritime system.

Ramsaroop’s vision needs more than a microphone

There is nothing objectionable about Guyanese owning ships, developing repair facilities or earning more from regional trade. Those are worthy ambitions.

The objection is to presenting ambition as an answer to questions about competence.

In the statement circulated about his conference appearance, Ramsaroop outlined six expansive priorities. But that statement supplied no implementation timetable, financing commitments, named project partners or measurable programme for strengthening the institutions on which those ambitions depend.

A list of opportunities is not an execution plan. A conference appearance is not proof of readiness. And the prospect of an oil refinery or an alumina plant does not, by itself, establish that either project has secured approval or financing.

Ramsaroop’s sales pitch invites a straightforward question: what precisely, is the public being asked to believe has already been achieved?

If the argument is that Guyana has potential, few would dispute it. If the argument is that the country has established the regulatory and operational foundations of a world-class maritime hub, the government must produce the evidence.

The Barima inquiry makes that distinction impossible to ignore.

The inquiry is examining the foundations

The commission has heard evidence about the vessel’s emergency beacon, including reporting that it was unregistered and that identification during the emergency was consequently complicated.

It has also examined emergency planning. MARAD’s Emergency Operations Division coordinator acknowledged that no separate emergency response plan had been prepared for Transport and Harbors Department ferries; a broader plan was considered adequate for the Barima emergency.

Testimony further identified difficulty communicating instructions directly to responders at the scene.

These are not peripheral matters. Identification, planning and communication are the machinery through which a rescue response must function. Nor are they final findings against every official involved. The inquiry must establish the facts and distinguish individual decisions from institutional weaknesses.

But an unfinished inquiry does not make the evidence already heard politically irrelevant. It makes the government’s unqualified confidence harder to accept.

Before promising a commanding position in Caribbean maritime trade, officials should explain how the weaknesses raised in testimony are being investigated, corrected and independently tested.

Indar’s crackdown must reach his own doorstep

Indar’s warning about fraudulent registrations deserves to be taken seriously. So does the responsibility attached to his office.

He holds the portfolio responsible for MARAD, the maritime regulator. Public Works Minister Juan Edghill holds responsibility for the Transport and Harbors Department, the ferry operator. Their roles are distinct, but the inquiry brings both oversight chains into focus.

That distinction prevents responsibility from becoming a convenient blur.

Indar must answer for the regulatory oversight within his portfolio. Edghill must answer for the administration of the ferry operator within his. Neither should be permitted to shelter behind the existence of the other.

Indar cannot invoke the authority of government when demanding better maritime conduct across the Caribbean, then expect the responsibilities of government to disappear when Guyanese examine domestic performance.

The relevant questions are exacting:

What deficiencies were reported to the ministry?
When were they reported?
What corrective instructions followed?
Who was responsible for implementation?
What evidence demonstrates that the measures worked?

These are not allegations of criminal conduct. They are the minimum questions that ministerial oversight should be able to withstand.

Fraudulent flag registration and failures in ferry safety or emergency response are different matters. Evidence concerning one does not prove an offence in the other. The connection is credibility: a minister demanding compliance abroad must accept rigorous scrutiny at home.

No borrowed guilt—and no borrowed glory

Ramsaroop should not be assigned personal responsibility for operational decisions he did not make. Indar should not be declared criminally culpable without evidence establishing an offence.

But the government cannot demand those distinctions only when responsibility becomes uncomfortable.

If its representatives claim collective credit for Guyana’s transformation, they must also accept scrutiny of the institutions through which that transformation is supposed to occur.

They cannot collectivize the applause and compartmentalize the failures.

Ramsaroop’s responsibility in this debate is to substantiate the promotional claims. Indar’s is to account for regulatory oversight. Edghill’s is to account for the ferry operator. The inquiry’s responsibility is to establish what happened without political interference or premature conclusions.

The public’s responsibility is not to applaud on cue.

Put the evidence beside the promises

The government should publish a corrective-action program identifying the weaknesses established, the officials responsible for addressing them, the resources committed and the deadlines for completion. Where facts remain disputed, it should identify the dispute rather than bury it beneath confident language.

Civil society groups have already demanded administrative leave for Indar, Edghill and senior maritime officials pending the inquiry—a demand for safeguards and accountability, not a judicial finding of guilt.

Those demands cannot be answered by another investment presentation.

Guyana’s maritime future may be substantial. Its opportunities may be real. Neither proposition excuses evasiveness about present performance.

The indictment here is political, not a criminal verdict: grand claims are being advanced while fundamental questions remain unanswered.

Ramsaroop wants the country to believe it can build, own and lead. Indar wants the region to enforce the rules. Then demonstrate the competence to build. Establish the safeguards to own. Accept the scrutiny required to lead. And bring the promised enforcement home.