Dear Editor,
Could I ask leader Mohd. Irfaan Ali to govern as a 21st century president rather than an early mediaeval monarch operating without a corpus of national law? I ask because on July 31 President Ali established a new safety, compliance and audit team for the maritime sector with no reference to a legal context. Indeed, since the sinking on the night of July 19, there has been remarkably little reference to the laws and regulations and conventions which applied before, and now apply after the event.
Guyana signed up to the Convention on the International Maritime Organisation (IMO, https://www.imo.org/en/about/conventions/pages/convention-on-the-international-maritime-organization.aspx ) on 23 October 1980, and acceded to the International Convention for the Safety of Lives at Sea (SOLAS, https://imo-epublications.org/content/books/9789280117936 ) on 10 December 1997, and so is obligated to convene an entirely independent maritime safety inquiry under a detailed code of practice (https://www.imo.org/en/ourwork/iiis/pages/casualty.aspx ).
This is urgent and should have precedence over the Presidential Commission of Inquiry under the Commission of Inquiry Act (cap. 19:03, 1933-1997). Incidentally, section 12 of that Act explicitly allows witnesses to not answer questions, to avoid self-incrimination. That section alone makes ludicrous the charge of murder against three surviving crew members, initiated by the Director of Public Prosecutions.
The President also seems to have overlooked the Coroners Act (cap. 04:003, 1887-2016) which in section 06 requires the convening of a coroner’s inquest into events such as the sinking.
The Director of Public Prosecutions might more usefully consider the numerous allegations of violations of health and safety requirements on ferries managed by the Transport and Harbours Department.
The Auditor General might be invited to check why such huge expenses on ferry maintenance and repairs since 2020 at a shipyard run by a fisheries company seem to have not produced a vessel in top condition.
And I hope that the President is aware of the Guyana Shipping Act (cap. 47:001, 1998 and 2006) whose 904 pages include detailed Regulations on safety equipment to be installed, checked, certified and practised. These Regulations are clearly written and very detailed.
And of course, like many other citizens, I look forward to reading in the Official Gazette the full terms of reference of the COI which he has established and for which 5 members have already been selected and sworn in before the TORs have been announced. What a strange inversion of normal procedure.
And lastly I would suggest that the government attempts to avoid raising the ferry wreck could well be viewed as deliberate obstruction of justice for the families of those still missing.
Yours truly
Janette Bulkan
