TRANSPARENCY INTERNATIONAL GUYANA INC.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Georgetown, Guyana — Monday, 27 July 2026

Civil Society Withholds Confidence in the MV Barima Commission, and Sets Out Five Tests

Transparency International Guyana Inc. convened a national civil society consultation on the MV Barima disaster. Following the appointment of a Commission of Inquiry without consultation, TIGI today publishes the standard against which that Commission will be measured.

Transparency International Guyana Inc. (TIGI) extends its condolences to the families of those lost in the capsizing of the MV Barima on 18 July, and to the communities of Region One who have borne this loss most heavily. Seventy-three deaths are confirmed. Thirty of our fellow citizens remain unaccounted for. We hold the bereaved and the survivors in our thoughts, and we thank those still engaged in the work of recovery.

On Saturday 25 July, TIGI convened a virtual national consultation bringing together some two dozen participants: indigenous and community organisations, faith leaders across the Hindu, Christian and Islamic communities, the trade union movement, disaster management and maritime professionals, the press, academics at home and in the diaspora, and citizens who have lost family in this disaster. This statement reflects the substance of that consultation

What we acknowledge

The rescue was real. The Coast Guard went out at night. Private boat operators with no obligation to anyone went out alongside them. Trinidadian and Brazilian teams came. Seventy-six people are alive today who would otherwise not be. That deserves the nation’s thanks, and it has ours without reservation.

The decision to appoint an international Commission responds to a central public demand, and we recognise it as such. Guyanese civil society, the parliamentary opposition, the National Toshaos Council and the Guyana Human Rights Association all called for an inquiry that could not be accused of investigating itself.

Nothing that follows retracts either acknowledgement.

Why we cannot presently give this Commission our confidence

A competent rescue does not answer the question of why the rescue was necessary. And the appointment of non-Guyanese commissioners is not the same thing as an independent process.

The Commission was constituted without consultation. Neither the parliamentary opposition, nor the National Toshaos Council, nor the affected communities of Region One, nor civil society were consulted on the composition of this body. Article 13 of the Constitution establishes inclusionary democracy as a principal objective of our political system, and provides for the increasing involvement of citizens in the decisions that affect their well-being. The Caribbean Court of Justice has held that the obligation to consult is to be understood broadly. The President’s discretion to appoint under the Commissions of Inquiry Act is not in dispute. What is in dispute is whether that discretion may be exercised without the consultation our Constitution contemplates, on a matter of this gravity, affecting a State-operated service in which seventy-three citizens died.

The MV Barima was a State vessel. It was regulated by a State agency, operated by a State department, and falls under a Ministry whose leadership remains in place. This is not a government matter. It is a State matter, and the resources involved belong to the people of Guyana. A body examining the conduct of the State cannot be constituted by the State alone if it is to command public confidence.

The Terms of Reference have not been published, and no undertaking has been given that the Commission’s report will be released in full. Guyana has held Commissions of Inquiry before whose reports the Guyanese people have never seen.

TIGI therefore does not at this time have confidence in the Commission as constituted. We say this without prejudice to the individual commissioners, whose professional standing is not the subject of this statement. Our objection is to a process that excluded the people most affected from any part in constituting the body that will judge what happened to them

Five tests

TIGI and the organisations that joined our consultation will assess this Commission against five measures. Each is specific and each is verifiable.

1. Publish the instrument of appointment and the Terms of Reference — now. Both should be published in full and laid before the National Assembly at its sitting today, before the Commission begins work. Parliament does not sit again until the autumn. If the scope of this inquiry is not opened to public and parliamentary scrutiny today, it will not be scrutinised at all before the Commission reports.
2. Require each commissioner to publish a declaration of interests. This is ordinary practice in serious inquiries and no reputable commissioner would object to it. Each member should publish, before taking evidence, a signed declaration of any commercial, professional, institutional, familial or financial connection to the Government of Guyana, to any State agency or official, to the maritime sector in Guyana, or to any party with an interest in the outcome — together with the terms and value of their engagement. Independence that cannot be verified is not independence; it is an assurance. The public is entitled to the former.
3. Guarantee publication of the report, in full, in advance. The undertaking should be given now, in writing, with a date. A report delivered privately to the authority that commissioned it is not an inquiry; it is a consultation.
4. Separate the safety investigation from the criminal process. The purpose of a marine safety investigation is to prevent recurrence, not to allocate blame, and every mature maritime jurisdiction keeps the two apart. Crew, dock staff and ticketing personnel must be able to give evidence about what actually happens on that route without that evidence being used to prosecute them. Without testimonial protection, the Commission will not be told the truth. And a prosecution must not be permitted to stand in for an explanation: if this ends with a conviction and no reform, we will have held someone accountable and changed nothing.
5. Name who owns the recommendations, and by when. This is the test Guyana has failed before. Ask who now recalls what the Mahdia inquiry recommended, or which of its recommendations were implemented. Every recommendation this Commission makes should carry a named responsible office, a published deadline, and progress reports laid before the National Assembly at six and twelve months. An inquiry whose findings have no owner is an inquiry designed to be forgotten 

What we propose

The remedy is neither complicated nor unprecedented. We call upon the President to suspend the commencement of the Commission’s work and to convene, within seven days, a consultation with the Leader of the Opposition, the National Toshaos Council, representatives of the affected communities and civil society, for the purpose of agreeing the composition of the Commission and its Terms of Reference.

On composition, we propose that the technical members be drawn from established marine casualty investigation bodies of long standing — such as the United Kingdom’s Marine Accident Investigation Branch, the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, or the Australian Transport Safety Bureau — whose investigators are career accident specialists, subject to institutional discipline, and demonstrably without connection to any party with an interest in the outcome. Technical cooperation may be sought from the International Maritime Organization in support of that work.

This costs the Government nothing but a week. It would convert a contested appointment into a national on

What must not wait for the Commission

Four matters require action now and should not be deferred pending any report.

Families must not be asked to sign away their rights. We are aware of the practice, following the Mahdia fire, of presenting bereaved families with one-time payments conditioned on documents foreclosing legal action against the State. We say plainly to every affected family: you are under no obligation to sign anything, and no payment should be conditioned on your surrender of any legal right. A compensation framework should be published, with defined amounts and timelines, that requires no waiver.

The orphaned children need a plan, not sympathy. Guardianship, schooling continuity and long-term care must be arranged now, with a named point of contact for each affected family and public reporting at six and twelve months. In the short term, those families who have lost their foodstuffs and other supplies should be helped with replacements.

Psychosocial support must reach the people it is meant to reach. Guyana has trained disaster-response personnel. Participants in our consultation with direct knowledge of that training report that those responders have not been deployed to this incident. That should be corrected this week.

The route must be made safe or suspended. A replacement vessel for this route was purchased for US$12.7 million and has not entered service because the necessary shoreside works at Port Kaituma remain incomplete. Government should publish a completion date. Until the route is demonstrably safe, subsidised alternative transport should be provided to the communities that depend on it

The standard

Region One has no road. For the people of Mabaruma, Port Kaituma and the surrounding communities, that vessel was not a convenience — it was the connection between a community and its country. The oldest vessel in the fleet was assigned to the citizens with the fewest alternatives. That is the fact this inquiry exists to confront.

TIGI does not raise these matters in a partisan spirit, and we decline the framing that treats questions as an attack. No child aboard that vessel belonged to a political party. What we are asking for is not a change of government but a standard of competence in matters where competence is the only thing between our citizens and the sea: that every passenger on every State vessel is counted before it sails, that no eighty-seven-year-old hull carries schoolchildren, and that when an inquiry tells this country what went wrong, someone is named to fix it.

We invite every Guyanese organisation and citizen willing to hold that standard — whatever their party, faith or region — to stand with us in it. Should the consultation we propose take place, TIGI will participate in good faith and will offer the Commission our full cooperation. We will report publicly on its progress against these five tests.

Media contact: Mike Singh, + 1 305 607-5587 (WhatsApp), MSIngh@TelkomCaribe.com

About Transparency International Guyana Inc. TIGI is the Guyana chapter of Transparency International, the global anti-corruption movement headquartered in Berlin and active in more than 100 countries. TIGI works for accountability, transparency and the rule of law in Guyana.