Physician, Disclose Thyself

 Physician, Disclose Thyself

A reply to Freddie Kissoon on TIGI, transparency, and who exactly is taking directives from whom

By the Editorial Board  ·  July, 2026

Freddie Kissoon has published a column accusing Transparency International Guyana Inc. (TIGI) of being an “opaque organisation” for withholding public support from the Commission of Inquiry into the MV Barima ferry disaster pending disclosure of commissioners’ conflicts of interest. He built his column on a geographic non-sequitur — conflating a Guyanese-registered, locally governed national chapter with the German location of the international movement’s secretariat, apparently missing the word “international” in the organisation’s own name — and he did it while asking TIGI to disclose things about itself that he has never disclosed about himself. We take up his invitation. Since Mr. Kissoon has made transparency about institutional affiliation the test of credibility, that test applies to him too.

THE TEST HE PROPOSES, APPLIED TO HIM

Mr. Kissoon writes for TBN Heat and previously for Kaieteur News. He asks who funds TIGI, who its executives are, and what connections its members hold. Fair questions for any institution operating in public life — including a columnist with a regular platform. So: has Mr. Kissoon ever disclosed, to his own readers, every institutional or personal connection that might bear on what he writes?

By his own standard, the absence of that disclosure is not evidence of innocence. It is exactly the opacity he condemns in others.

A DOCUMENTED HISTORY, NOT AN INSINUATION

On May 24, 2010, Mr. Kissoon was assaulted outside Nigel’s Supermarket on Robb Street, Georgetown, when a man threw faecal matter in his face. Kwame McCoy — at the time the PPP/C’s Press and Publicity Officer and a former Presidential Press Liaison Officer — was charged and tried alongside Jason Abdulla and Shawn Hinds in connection with that attack; one of the defence attorneys told the court his client was following the direction of his employer, McCoy, and that refusing would have cost him his job. This is not a claim we are advancing on hearsay. It was reported at the time by Kaieteur News and the Guyana Chronicle, and it was still being invoked in print as recently as this month.

Kwame McCoy is now Minister within the Office of the Prime Minister with responsibility for Public Affairs — the portfolio that sits over government information and media affairs, the same ambit under which the state-owned Guyana Chronicle operates. We are not asserting a formal chain of command between a minister and every commentator who writes favourably of this government. We are asking the question Mr. Kissoon insists is fair game when applied to others: what is the relationship, and has it been disclosed?

“If an organisation wants to be taken seriously, then it has to be open about its leadership and membership.” — Freddie Kissoon, July 29, 2026

Mr. Kissoon wrote that sentence about TIGI. We are simply applying it.

ON THE SUBSTANCE TIGI ACTUALLY RAISED

Stripped of the German tangent, TIGI’s request was narrow: that commissioners named to inquire into the Barima disaster disclose, in advance, any commercial, financial, or institutional connection to the government, state agencies, the maritime sector, or any interested party.

This is a standard conflict-of-interest disclosure, the kind expected of judges, auditors, and inquiry panels in any functioning accountability system. Mr. Kissoon calls it “comical” and “insulting.” A commissioner asked to declare a financial interest before ruling on a matter that could touch that interest is not being insulted. That is the minimum architecture of a credible inquiry.

On TIGI’s absence from the 2020 election crisis and the Article 13 point, we note only that critiquing an organisation’s past record of engagement is a legitimate line of argument — unlike attributing to it a foreign ideology by way of a shared word in its name.

WHAT WE ARE NOT SAYING

We are not asserting that Mr. Kissoon currently receives instruction from Minister McCoy, and we have not established that as fact. We are noting a documented history between the two men, McCoy’s current portfolio over government information, and the pattern Mr. Kissoon’s recent columns have taken — and we are asking him to apply to himself the disclosure standard he applied to TIGI.

If the answer is that no such relationship exists, that answer costs him nothing to give. Its absence so far is his choice, not ours.

The Board.