Source: Demerara Waves

By Antonio Dey | HGP Nightly News |

LILIENDAAL, GREATER GEORGETOWN — Approximately 80 days after the catastrophic sinking of the state-operated ferry MV Barima, the long-awaited Presidential Commission of Inquiry (CoI) has officially established its procedural calendar, scheduling formal public hearings to commence in eight days on Wednesday, October 14, 2026, at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre (ACCC).

The announcement was delivered by Secretary to the Commission Javed Shadick, who confirmed that the inquiry officially launches with an opening ceremony on Wednesday, October 7, 2026.

More than 100 witnesses—encompassing traumatized survivors, bereaved family members, maritime regulators, Transport and Harbours Department (T&HD) administrators, and emergency first responders—are expected to take the witness stand under oath. The disaster, which unfolded in July, claimed the lives of more than 100 passengers and crew, with only 76 persons surviving the catastrophe.

Procedural Timeline & Hinterland Outreach: Regions 1, 3, 4, and 5

Ahead of formal public testimony, the five-member commission, chaired by eminent jurist Justice Godfrey Phillip Smith, is initiating closed preliminary briefings with affected relatives across both coastal and hinterland corridors:

• Coastal Relatives Briefing: Following the opening ceremony at the ACCC on Wednesday afternoon, the Commissioners will meet directly with families of victims and survivors residing across coastal Regions Three (Essequibo Islands-West Demerara), Four (Demerara-Mahaica), and Five (Mahaica-Berbice).
• Hinterland Fact-Finding Mission: On Monday and Tuesday, the Commissioners will travel to Mabaruma and Port Kaituma in Region One (Barima-Waini) to inspect loading facilities, passenger terminals, and docking wharves, while meeting face-to-face with local survivors and families of the deceased.
• Evidence Strictly in Public Hearings: Shadick clarified that the upcoming outreach visits will not collect official evidence, as all witness testimonies, cross-examinations, and documentary exhibits must be tendered transparently during public hearings. To date, only one survivor has formally submitted evidence.
• Potential Regional Sittings: The Commission is actively deliberating whether to stage satellite public hearings directly within Port Kaituma and Mabaruma to accommodate hinterland residents who cannot travel to the capital.

“In the afternoon, the Commissioners will be meeting with the families of the survivors for all those persons along the Coastland, Regions 3, 4, and 5,” Shadick confirmed.

“The number of persons, I cannot say how much would be in each one, but our initial count, we are looking at more than 100 witnesses.”

Evidentiary Challenges: Sunken Hull and Imprisoned Witnesses

Evidence assembly is currently being led by Commission Counsels Arudranauth Gossai and Teni Housty, who are actively screening and interviewing potential witnesses.

However, the inquiry faces acute evidentiary and logistical hurdles:

• Evidence Trapped on the Seabed: Key physical evidence—including the vessel’s hull, internal mechanical compartments, cargo manifest records, and voyage data—remains submerged on the ocean floor, as families continue to demand that the state refloat the wreckage.
• Incarcerated Key Witnesses: Critical crew members and prospective witnesses remain remanded in prison, presenting unique procedural questions regarding witness security and custody during open sessions.
• Pressed by media on how these limitations might impact the Commission’s effectiveness, Shadick noted that determinations regarding technical subpoena powers, forensic salvage, and incarcerated testimonies remain the exclusive constitutional purview of the Commissioners.

Broad Mandate and 6-Month Timeline Extension

The Commission’s terms of reference require it to establish full chronological timelines, pinpoint direct mechanical and human causes, assess regulatory non-compliance, and determine whether any act, omission, systemic breakdown, or institutional failure aggravated the casualty or delayed rescue operations.

Although originally mandated to complete its inquiry and submit a final report within two months of its July appointment, Shadick confirmed that an extension will be formally requested, estimating that completing the expansive investigative docket will require approximately six months.

Source: HGP Nightly News / HGPTV

Source: Village Voice News

By GHK Lall- Pres Ali sez that Guyanese could expect a Commission of Inquiry into the MV Barima tragedy that is of the highest quality.  The president has given the same assurance in other circumstances and what Guyanese were left to deal with was Excellency Ali type quality.

Most Guyanese, including many from the PPP base, have a different definition, interpretation, and expectation of what real quality is, looks like, should be.  It’s painful, but the president’s history with quality leads me to low to no expectations re the Barima COI.  I present my expectations, which any quality COI should easily deliver awake or asleep.

First Finding: a culture of political intrusion and direction contributed heavily to 100 lives lost.  Those in the political directorate who held up that and other boats, who overloaded it.  They indirectly (and directly) killed 100 struggling, lower-rung-of-the-ladder natives.  Names named.  All the way up.

Second Finding: a culture of executive and administrative acquiescence had a hand in sending that boat and those bodies in it to the bottom.  Cargo?  Who cares about any damn minister’s precious cargo now lost?  Highlight that, so that Guyana sees how governance functions, when the parades and speeches are done.  Bottom line conclusion: an overloaded boat had an overdue date with the seabed and fishes.

Third Finding: there’s a clear picture of ministerial and managerial actions that reek of material derelictions.  Responsible leadership.  Risk appetite.  Safety considerations.  This finding should go above two names or two government portfolios.

Fourth Finding: ultimately, responsibility for the MV Barima tragedy rises above the names held out, goes beyond the clamor of vigilantes galloping forward and hunting for vengeance.  Vigilantes go well with vengeance.  But vigilantes-however well-intended, well-grounded, and well representative of the bottled rage of a people-are never about true justice.  It’s the justice of the emotionally crazed, the bloodthirsty.

Fifth Finding: indeed, ministerial heads have hands stained with blood.  But there are heads that are above their heads.  Ministers don’t operate in vacuums, or the isolation of remote islands.  Ministers accumulate reputations.  Depending on that record, honestly compiled, they remain in place, or are terminated.  When they are retained, despite chronic ills, then responsibility and accountability spiral higher.

Who kept them?  Who condoned their weaknesses?  Who covered up their gaps?  Who fostered a tragic culture (we are in charge and to hell with everybody else)?  We do as we please, don’t answer to anyone.  It was only a matter of time before a boat capsized, a road collapsed, a helicopter crashed, a children’s dorm burned.

Sixth Finding: 100 dead, Guyanese shattered, numbed, disillusioned.  This can’t be clean governance.  This has no ingredients that underpin trusted leadership at the highest level.  Any level.  Irresponsibility and treachery accelerated tragedy.

Seventh Finding: leadership platitudes added the profane to a painful set of circumstances.  Leadership must talk way less, speak to truth far more, and work constantly and sincerely at generating real trust.  Not racially motivated trust.  Not money trust (bartered for as part of an exchange).  Not propaganda energized trust.  But real trust from real people, who don’t owe anything to anyone, most of all political dominators and dominatrices.  This is right.  This is wrong.  This is who doesn’t belong.

In other countries, ministers were rolled out of offices, with their heads preceding.  In some instances, entire governments took the honest, decent step.  They departed.  National leaders have done so, on principle, or in response to the power of the people, and the pressures they brought to catastrophic issues.

A point worthy of note is that those national leaders had no well-tended, well populated pastures to retreat to, settle down, and write their memoirs.  Or a textbook on cunning, but failed, leadership.  A proper, honorable, self-respecting, MV Barima COI could, with one eye closed, one ear blocked, and one part of its mind otherwise occupied, arrive at the above findings inside a week.

Source: Village Voice News

Transparency International Guyana Inc. (TIGI) is demanding an independent investigation into allegations of rape and threatening behaviour against Deputy Commissioner of Police Fazil Karimbaksh, head of the Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU), warning that the handling of the matter by an undisclosed internal police team risks undermining public confidence in the investigation.

In a statement issued October 5, TIGI said the allegations are particularly serious because they involve one of the Guyana Police Force’s most senior officers and a serving police officer who is reportedly the complainant.

The organisation said an investigation conducted entirely within the Police Force cannot automatically be regarded as independent when the accused remains a senior officer with rank and institutional influence.

“TIGI therefore calls for an immediate, credible and independent investigation, with investigators and oversight demonstrably outside the authority, professional orbit and institutional influence of Deputy Commissioner Karimbaksh.”

The Guyana Police Force has said Commissioner of Police Clifton Hicken established a team to investigate the allegations. Home Affairs Minister Oneidge Walrond has also said statements will be taken from those involved before the matter proceeds through the appropriate disciplinary or criminal process.

However, TIGI said neither the composition of the investigative team nor its reporting structure has been publicly disclosed.

The organisation wants the authorities to explain whether investigators are subordinate to Karimbaksh, who will provide independent oversight and what measures have been implemented to protect the complainant and potential witnesses from intimidation, retaliation or interference.

“Those omissions are not minor administrative details. They go to the integrity of the investigation.”

TIGI calls for administrative leave

TIGI is also calling for Karimbaksh to be immediately removed from operational duties and placed on administrative leave while the investigation is conducted.

The organisation stressed that administrative leave should not be interpreted as punishment or a finding of guilt, but as a measure to protect the integrity of the investigation and reduce the possibility of interference with witnesses, evidence or the investigative process.

Minister Walrond has similarly said it is her view that Karimbaksh should be placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation.

TIGI said the Government should now move from expressing an opinion to taking decisive action.

The organisation is also demanding the immediate preservation of potentially relevant evidence, including communications, duty rosters, electronic records, CCTV footage and access logs.

Concern over “formal confrontation”

TIGI has raised particular concern over the Minister’s use of the term “formal confrontation” to describe a stage of the investigation.

Walrond previously said investigators would obtain statements, including from Karimbaksh, followed by what she described as a formal confrontation before determining whether disciplinary or criminal proceedings were warranted.

TIGI said the Government must clarify whether this involves requiring the complainant to directly face the accused.

The organisation pointed to Section 42 of Guyana’s Sexual Offences Act, which provides protections for complainants and restricts circumstances in which they may be required to recount allegations in the presence of an accused person.

TIGI is calling for confirmation that no complainant will be compelled or pressured into a face-to-face encounter and that the complainant has access to independent legal and psychosocial support.

President urged to intervene

TIGI is also calling on President Irfaan Ali to ensure that the matter is handled through a process capable of commanding public confidence.

The organisation noted that the Police Service Commission, which has constitutional responsibility for disciplinary control over police officers at or above the rank of Inspector, is currently not constituted.

It argued that the absence of the Commission cannot become an excuse for institutional inaction.

“The President cannot remain a spectator.”

TIGI wants an urgent mechanism established to remove Karimbaksh from operational duties while respecting his constitutional right to due process, together with an expedited process to reconstitute the Police Service Commission.

The organisation has also called for independent protection and support for the complainant and witnesses, full disclosure of safeguards surrounding the investigation and a clear timetable for restoring the Commission.

The allegations against Karimbaksh have not been proven, and he remains entitled to due process and the presumption of innocence.

For TIGI, however, the controversy has become a test of Guyana’s institutional safeguards and whether serious allegations involving a senior public official can be investigated independently and transparently.

“The country deserves a process that is independent in fact, credible in appearance and accountable to the public.”

Source: Village Voice News