Did the State Create a Maritime Hazard—Then Neglect to Fix It?

592GUARDIAN♦ACCOUNTABILITY♦INTEGRITY IN JOURNALISM♦GUYANA

Did the State Create a Maritime Hazard—Then Neglect to Fix It?

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OPINION BY : Hem Kumar October 2026

The latest disclosure is extraordinary. Georgetown’s Lighthouse Department—the body associated with maritime communications and the historic navigational beacon at the entrance to the Demerara Channel—reportedly operates from a single room atop the Marriott Hotel.

Yet the attendant who gave evidence could not say whether the original Water Street lighthouse remained functional. Nor could he say whether a navigational beacon existed at the Marriott location.

That should not be treated as a minor administrative curiosity. It is a grave public-safety question.

A lighthouse attendant ought not to be uncertain about whether the beacon for which his department is known—and which mariners may rely on for safe navigation—is operating, where it is located, what its light characteristics are, or who is responsible for maintaining it. If this uncertainty exists at the operational level, the Commission must establish what, precisely, has been happening at the level of management, ministerial responsibility, procurement, oversight, and regulation.

The inquiry must now ask a hard and unavoidable question: did the State permit the construction of a high-rise hotel that obstructed, impaired, or compromised the light of an existing navigational facility, commit itself to a replacement safety system, spend public money to implement that solution, and then fail to ensure the solution was properly completed, certified, maintained, and operated?

If that is what occurred, this is not merely a lapse. It is a self-created public-risk problem compounded by official neglect.

 A Problem Foreseen Years Ago

The record indicates that the risk was not unforeseen.

Before the Marriott was constructed, concern was raised that the building’s height would obstruct the historic Georgetown Lighthouse’s navigational light. In 2008, it was reported that an environmental and social impact assessment recommended a beacon at the highest point of the hotel to compensate for that obstruction. The recommendation was apparently for a beacon with wider visibility and greater range.

By 2013, the then Works Minister, Robeson Benn, reportedly stated that an oscillating navigational light would be installed atop the Marriott. The public was told that the historic lighthouse would retain its light and continue its functions, including radio communication with vessels and vessel tracking.

Those were not casual assurances. They went directly to maritime safety.

But now, more than a decade later, the public is hearing evidence that Lighthouse Department personnel work from the hotel but cannot say whether a navigational beacon is present there. The historic lighthouse is said to no longer function as the guide for vessels entering and leaving the Demerara Channel. A former employee says she never worked from the Water Street tower, that it was not operating, and that access to it was no longer possible.

What happened between the environmental assessment, ministerial undertaking, and present-day uncertainty?

Was the replacement beacon installed? If so, when? Was it tested and commissioned? What are its light characteristics, nominal range, precise coordinates, and operational status? Does it meet the applicable standards for an aid to navigation? Was it properly recorded in official Notices to Mariners and nautical publications? Were domestic operators, pilots, fishing vessels, tug operators, commercial shippers, and international maritime authorities formally notified?

Or did Guyana permit a structure to interfere with a longstanding navigation aid without ever establishing a fully functional, transparent, and professionally managed replacement?

The Marriott Room Is Not the Issue

Let us be clear: there is nothing inherently improper about a maritime communications operation working from a modern building rather than an old lighthouse. The historic lighthouse could be preserved as a national monument while navigation is carried out through a modern light, radar, radio, automatic identification system, vessel-traffic service, or another properly regulated arrangement.

But modernization requires more—not less—clarity and accountability.

A room equipped with computers, a VHF radio, a telephone, and an antenna may be part of a functioning maritime-operation system. But the country needs evidence, not impressions.

What exactly is the function of the Marriott office? Is it a designated radio watch station? Does it operate continuously, and if so, under which watchkeeping procedures? Does it monitor specific VHF frequencies? Are transmissions logged? Who reviews those logs? Is it integrated with MARAD, the Transport and Harbors Department, port authorities, pilots, the Coast Guard, and emergency responders? What redundancy exists if the radio, electricity, antenna, internet, or telephone fails?

More fundamentally, what is the official navigational aid for entry into and exit from the Demerara Channel?

A country cannot afford to leave that answer to speculation, employee recollection, or a casual statement that the old lighthouse “is not functioning.” In a commercial river used by domestic and international traffic, safe navigation must rest on specified and verifiable aids, reliable communications, trained personnel, properly maintained equipment, and clearly assigned responsibility.

The Inquiry Must Follow the Money

The Commission should now pursue the costs factor with the same seriousness it applies to operational failures.

The Commission, Parliament, auditors, and the media should demand the records:

♦ The environmental and social impact assessment that identified the navigational risk.

♦ The development approvals, conditions, correspondence, and undertakings related to the Marriott project.

♦ The decision authorizing any relocation, modification, replacement, or decommissioning of the lighthouse function.

♦ Procurement files for beacons, lights, antennas, radios, power systems, marine communications equipment, installation works, maintenance, and security.

♦ Contracts, invoices, payment vouchers, inspection reports, acceptance certificates, warranties, and maintenance agreements.

♦ The cost of operating the Lighthouse Department from the Marriott, including rent, licenses, utilities, communications services, security, equipment, and any payments to the hotel or associated entities.

♦ Technical reports confirming whether a replacement beacon was installed and whether it remains operational.

♦ The operational manuals, duty rosters, radio logs, maintenance schedules, fault reports, and incident reports for the Lighthouse Department.

♦ Notices issued to mariners, published nautical data, and correspondence with international maritime bodies concerning the new or altered light arrangement.

These records should tell a simple story. Either government identified the risk, funded a solution, installed it, tested it, maintained it, and communicated it to mariners—or it did not.

There can be no acceptable middle ground where a vital navigational safeguard is funded on paper but uncertain in practice.

Who Was Responsible?

The inquiry must identify the officer, agency, or ministry with direct legal and operational responsibility for the system.

Was it MARAD? The Ministry of Public Works? The Transport and Harbors Department? A port authority? The developer? A contractor? Or did responsibility become scattered among multiple institutions until no one could be held answerable for the final outcome?

That is a familiar weakness in public administration: several agencies may be involved in approving a development, awarding a contract, managing infrastructure, regulating vessels, and responding to emergencies. Yet when a failure occurs, every institution claims only a limited role.

The country cannot accept that answer where navigation safety is concerned.

Someone had to ensure that a replacement beacon was installed before an obstructing structure was allowed to compromise the established light. Someone had to verify that it met the necessary standard. Someone had to ensure that maintenance was budgeted and performed. Someone had to know, at every point, whether the light was operational. Someone had to notify mariners if it was not.

If no one did, that itself is the finding.

A System Cannot Be Run by Uncertainty

The most disturbing aspect of the testimony is the impression of an essential public function existing without an intelligible operational architecture.

A lighthouse department cannot simply be a name attached to a hotel room. Its purpose must be defined. Its equipment must be known. Its personnel must understand their responsibilities. Its systems must be written down. Its records must be complete. Its management must be able to confirm, without hesitation, what lights and communications aids are operational, which are defective, who is repairing them, and when service will be restored.

The Commission’s work has exposed a succession of troubling questions about vessel operation, regulation, maintenance, supervision, emergency readiness, and official reporting. The Lighthouse Department evidence now raises another: was Guyana’s maritime-safety apparatus functioning in the manner required by law, professional standards, and common sense—or were key functions merely being carried along without serious scrutiny?

That question cannot be left hanging once the hearings conclude.

The Public Deserves Answers—and Corrective Action

The inquiry should recommend an immediate independent technical audit of all aids to navigation in the Demerara River and other major waterways. The audit should identify every operational light, beacon, buoy, radio facility, radar or monitoring system, power backup arrangement, and communication protocol; assess its condition; establish who is responsible; and publish an urgent corrective plan.

.If equipment was paid for but not delivered, installed but never commissioned, commissioned but not maintained, or allowed to become inoperable without timely replacement, those findings must be referred to the appropriate oversight and investigative bodies.

Guyana cannot wait for another maritime emergency to discover that essential safety systems were unclear, unverified, or neglected.

The question now confronting the State is stark: after allowing the Marriott development to create a foreseeable obstruction to a longstanding navigational light, did the authorities actually complete and sustain the alternative system they promised?

The Commission must demand the documentary proof. The country deserves no less.