One week after Guyana’s worst maritime disaster in generations, President Irfaan Ali has announced that he will appoint an “independent” Commission of Inquiry. For many Guyanese, the announcement was not reassuring. It was infuriating.
After days of grieving, confusion, unanswered questions, conflicting information and growing public distrust, the country expected something different. It expected humility. It expected accountability. It expected evidence that those responsible for overseeing Guyana’s maritime sector understood the magnitude of what had occurred.
Instead, the President announced that he alone would appoint the commissioners.No indication that the parliamentary opposition would participate. No indication that victims’ families would have any voice.No response to calls from civil society and opposition parties for the resignation of Public Works Minister Juan Edghill or Minister within the Ministry of Public Works Deodat Indar while the investigation proceeds.
For a tragedy that has shaken public confidence, the first act should have been to build trust. Instead, the government appears determined to retain complete control of the process.
The Guyana Human Rights Association proposed a different model, one in which the President and Opposition Leader Azruddin Mohamed would each appoint members to the commission. Whether one agrees with every aspect of that proposal or not, its underlying principle was obvious. Justice must not only be done. It must be seen to be done. That principle matters because the Commission will be investigating institutions that ultimately report to the government itself.
When confidence has already been damaged, independence cannot simply be declared. It must be demonstrated. The President has promised distinguished experts in law, marine engineering, maritime safety and disaster investigation. Those qualifications are welcome. But qualifications alone cannot restore confidence if the process itself excludes other voices. The timing also raises difficult questions.
Families are still grieving. Many are still struggling to comprehend the scale of the loss. For them, the immediate priority has been mourning, supporting survivors and ensuring that every possible effort was made to recover victims. Against that backdrop, the announcement of a government-appointed inquiry felt premature to many observers. Before asking the country to trust another official process, there should first have been a broader effort to build consensus around how that process would be constituted.
This tragedy is larger than politics. But that is precisely why politics should not dominate the investigation.
Guyana deserves an inquiry that every citizen, regardless of political affiliation, can believe in.
The Commission’s terms of reference are broad. It will examine seaworthiness, maintenance, passenger management, crew conduct, emergency response, regulatory oversight and potential negligence. Those are exactly the questions the public wants answered. The problem is not the scope. The problem is confidence.
Confidence cannot be manufactured through a presidential address. It is earned through transparency, inclusion and independence. The government has repeatedly asked citizens to trust the process. Trust, however, is not something governments demand. It is something they earn. That begins by recognizing that they do not investigate themselves in isolation after a disaster of this magnitude.
This should have been an opportunity to unite the country around a genuinely independent process, one that included parliamentary opposition, civil society and respected professionals selected through consultation rather than executive announcement.
Instead, the government has chosen a path that risks deepening skepticism at precisely the moment when national unity is most needed. Nearly every family in Guyana now knows someone affected by the MV Barima tragedy. This is no longer simply a maritime accident. It is a national trauma.
The Commission of Inquiry may eventually establish what happened on the night the vessel sank. But unless the process itself commands broad public confidence, many Guyanese will continue asking an equally important question:
Who is investigating the investigators?
In a democracy, governments do not own the truth. They earn the public’s confidence by allowing independent institutions to pursue it, wherever the evidence leads. After one of the darkest weeks in Guyana’s recent history, nothing less will be enough.
