Prime Minister Mark Phillips said an independent commission of inquiry will determine responsibility for the MV Barima tragedy and examine whether established regulations and operating procedures were breached.
Phillips told journalist Gordon Moseley on the GoMoseley radio programme Wednesday morning that the government had confirmed a discrepancy between the ferry’s passenger manifest and the people who were aboard. He stressed that authorities had not yet determined whether the vessel was overloaded and said that question must be settled by the inquiry.
Phillips said the inquiry would be established “as early as possible,” but did not provide a timeline. He also said people would be held responsible based on its findings and recommendations.
The interview was conducted as Guyana began three days of national mourning following the sinking of the MV Barima. The government said 179 people were aboard the vessel, including passengers who were not listed on its manifest.
Editor’s Note: The following questions and answers have been edited only for punctuation and the removal of obvious verbal repetitions.
Gordon Moseley: It’s great to have you joining us this morning as we begin these three days of national mourning. And I know I was at the press conference last evening with you when you provided the latest update as of around 6 p.m. or thereabouts. Is there another update you can provide to us this morning?
Prime Minister Mark Phillips: No, the figures remain the same. Last night, if I can recall, I told you that we recovered 53 bodies, and that figure remains the same.
Moseley: And explain to members of the public the situation out there right now, the process of recovering those bodies and having those bodies identified, for persons who may not be fully aware of that.
Phillips: Okay, what we have ongoing is the search and rescue, search and recovery, in the sense that we started out as a search and rescue. As I speak, unfortunately, we haven’t rescued anyone over the last 24 hours or so, or 36 hours. So, we’re more into search and recovery. We are recovering bodies, and yesterday we recovered 22 bodies.
Moseley: And once those bodies are recovered, take us through that process.
Phillips: Once the bodies are recovered, we have to identify the bodies. We have to do a post-mortem by inspection, and we have to hand over the bodies to the families for funeral activities, for interment.
We have a number of families who were flown from different locations. Families were flown from Port Kaituma, from Mabaruma, and even from Georgetown to Region Two, and they are assisting our people there in Region Two in identifying the bodies.
We have storage capacity installed there, additional storage capacity installed there to store the bodies, refrigerated storage capacity. Store the bodies, and as we identify the bodies, we work with the families, identify the bodies, and then move the bodies to wherever community they want to bury the bodies. We are providing all the necessary assistance here in terms of transportation of the bodies, funeral arrangements, and everything.
Moseley: What assistance outside of that is being offered to the family at this time, to the families of not only the deceased but those who survived, in terms of counseling? What is being offered to them?
Phillips: We have counseling being offered not only in Georgetown but in Region One, where you have many of the families. Some of them already repatriated to the community and is there with their family. But the counseling facilities are provided within those communities.
We have offered them financial assistance. Many of the people who were recovered, we had to find clothing for them. We find accommodation, clothing, meals, and we offer them financial assistance, and we transport them back to their communities. So, assistance is ongoing to those families.
Moseley: Prime Minister, I want us, sir, to turn now to the night of the tragedy and the response on that night. Take us through when the first call came in. We initially heard it was just after 11[pm] when the Timehri tower received that first phone call. What was the response like immediately after that call was received to get to that tragedy site?
Phillips: I had the technical team pronounce on that already, but when they received the call, they stood up the Maritime Search and Rescue Coordination Centre, and the Coast Guard was informed, the police was informed, all the government agencies were informed.
And what we had was a massive movement of resources from Georgetown, from Region Two, even civilians, private people who received the message also joined in moving to the area where the vessel was deemed to have capsized, and they started this massive search effort.
We had the private sector. One of the companies provided an aircraft to fly over the area. Somebody fired off a flare, and that gave us a good fix, and that was very helpful. The GDF helicopters deployed, fly over the area, and all those actions were very helpful with the people in the water who assisted in rescuing.
And many of those people were rescued by private sector agencies, private agencies, fishermen, and so, who know the area well. They went out, discovered the area, the Coast Guard joined them, and we had a massive effort, again, that included the national assets and privately owned assets, and that led to the rescuing of so many people after this incident.
As I speak, even in the recovery phase, searching for bodies, we still have a lot of private assets that continue to work with the national or state assets, searching the entire area, looking and retrieving bodies and handing it over to the police and to the facilities at Charity and at Suddie for processing.
We have also a team of divers, local divers and divers from the French armed forces, because by now you know that we’ve identified the site, we’ve identified the vessel, and the divers went down. They went into the vessel, and they continue their work yesterday, and they will continue again today. Also, today we expect the Trinidad and Tobago Coast Guard will be joining us, and divers from the Brazilian armed forces will be joining us today too. There’s a massive exercise out there to search inside the vessel, and the intention is to retrieve anybody that is inside the vessel there.
Moseley: Mr. Prime Minister, during that initial search and rescue operation, and you spoke there about deployment of assets, and there were some concerns earlier about the state deployment of assets, whether those assets were adequate or inadequate to address a tragedy of this sort. We heard about one helicopter and a small plane from a private operator.
Phillips: Yes, we had one helicopter. We have three helicopters, state-owned helicopters. Two of them are unserviceable. One, fortunately, is serviceable, and that was deployed into the area to assist in the search.
The plane, that’s a decision we made. We utilized the services of the plane from the private airline. The pilot is well experienced, many years of flying over Guyana and over the seashores and the exclusive economic zone of Guyana, not only overland, and many hours of flying in the night.
While I may not call name or so, he was an experienced pilot, wanted to go there and be part of this effort. And he went out, and somebody fired off a flare after one of the survivors fired off a flare after they heard the aircraft overhead, and that was very helpful.
Because by then, the Coast Guard assets would have been closing in on the area based on the coordinates that were given, and that was very helpful, and that helped us in a large way to rescue the number of people that we were able to rescue on that fateful night.
Moseley: Looking back now, sir, do you think that response could have been better had we had more working assets in place? Because we’re dealing here with over 170 people, 179, the number you put it at, and those first hours have been critical. Our first hours, from the time that call was received at 11 o’clock to, you know, when those first rescues began. So, in retrospect, do you think we could have responded much better, taking into account—
Phillips: The reality is, if you’re going to rescue people, you have to get in the water. So, all the assets that we had available to us were deployed in the water.
The limitation we had, as I mentioned before, we had one helicopter that flew over the area, and the fact remains that, if you’re in an area like that, you just can’t have everything you have flying into the area because that itself will pose its own danger.
So, the one helicopter was effectively utilized to fly over the area, and then during the daylight hours, we parked that helicopter and utilized another helicopter from another private sector agency, the Omni Helicopters.
And as you know, when the Omni helicopter was flying over that area, we’ve restricted that area only to that one helicopter to fly over that area. Again, safety concerns. So, yes, while we may have had two helicopters unserviceable, we had a helicopter from the GDF and we had the helicopter from Omni in that area, and it was very helpful.
I don’t think in any situation you will have an ideal amount of assets that you feel you will need, but you have to use what you have at your disposal at a point in time, and that’s what we did.
Moseley: Moving on now to the situation with that ferry, from the time it left Port Georgetown, the weight, the number of people on board, and we have seen in the early reports the fluctuating numbers. The numbers you were getting from the maritime folks and the Transport and Harbours Department, as against, you know, when we start to see persons being rescued. How concerning is that to your government that, you know, there was essentially a hustle going on down there, and that while you have some persons on the manifest, you have persons who, you know, were on board and no one knew they were on board?
Phillips: Well, let’s deal with facts. We have established that there were people on the ferry who were not listed on the manifest, okay?
I would like to stop there, having established that fact, and say an investigation will bring out everything that occurred before the ferry departed, and perhaps on the journey up to the time of the incident, and even afterwards.
Okay, so while we have information, we went through, as I said before, we quickly put together a team to do a quick investigation. We utilized footage from the CCTV, right, the closed-circuit television cameras that were at the Transport and Harbours Department wharf, and that helped us to narrow it down to 179.
We looked at the manifest and we established, yes, that there have been people on the boat because we rescued people who were not on the manifest.
So, I would want to say, yes, there are number discrepancies, but let us await the comprehensive investigation that will be done as we establish a commission of inquiry, and that will lead us to determine the extent of deviations from established regulations, standing operating procedures, and, of course, the necessary recommendations where we will apportion blameworthiness, who will be disciplined, and what necessary actions, corrective actions, will be taken to improve the service and the safety of the passengers on our ferries.
Because we will continue to have ferry service to those areas, Port Kaituma, Mabaruma, and across the Waini River to the other destinations, right, land of many waters. We will continue to use ferry. But this incident and the investigation report from this incident certainly will lead us in a direction where we could improve on the services and tighten the regulations to ensure that, you know, people don’t deviate from set standing operating procedures in the future.
Okay, so as we bring closure to the people who would have lost loved ones here, it is very important that we do this commission of inquiry and utilize the report and the recommendations to improve the safety aspect of the service provided by the Transport and Harbours Department.
Moseley: Mr. Prime Minister, sir, we keep hearing about this commission of inquiry that will be coming, but how soon will that commission of inquiry be established? And has the government started to work on essentially what that inquiry will be looking into, and what you’re hoping to get out of it?
Phillips: I must admit that the focus right now is on, as I mentioned over and over, the search and rescue, search and recovery, and bringing closure, working with families, because this is a difficult time for all of us in Guyana, you know.
And, of course, the next step is having that commission of inquiry established as early as possible. I will not give you a timeline, but it is certain that it is a priority action that the government is looking at right now, to have that commission of inquiry established as early as possible.
Moseley: And, sir, when that commission of inquiry would have been established, and they go through the testimonies and they go through the gathering of information, we know of past instances where there have been commissions of inquiry into deadly incidents, and then recommendations are made. Recommendations are not followed. Persons are held responsible in one way or the other. What can you say to the Guyanese public this morning that persons will indeed be held responsible for what is the single largest tragedy involving Guyanese nationals on this country’s shore?
Phillips: Well, the commission of inquiry gives us the information to be utilized in the next step, as you mentioned, of holding people responsible.
I can assure you, yes, we will have a commission of inquiry, and people will be held responsible based on the outcome, the results, and the recommendation of that commission of inquiry.
That has always been the case. I’m not aware of any other time where we reneged, in the sense that we had a commission of inquiry and we have recommendations, and we have not implemented the recommendations from those commissions of inquiry.
Moseley: We’ve seen instances, sir, and that’s what I’m trying to get to, where persons are given what we might consider a slap on the wrist. They’re moved about, they’re suspended, they’re removed from a post. But in a situation like this, and you’ve already said there have been discrepancies in even the loading of the ferry and stuff like that. So, the public, they would want to know, when we say persons will be held responsible, what does that really mean?
Phillips: I want to correct you there. You said discrepancies in loading of the ferry. I didn’t say that. I said there’s a discrepancy in the personnel—
Moseley: Okay.
Phillips: The passengers, in relation to people who are on the ferry and they were not listed on the manifest.
Moseley: Oh, but that was all right. A ferry will have—
Phillips: Passengers, and a ferry will have cargo. Yeah, so we have to be careful here, right? I am talking about passengers.
Moseley: Passengers, okay.
Phillips: The whole gamut as to the passengers, loading and passengers who were listed or not listed on the manifest, and the issue of cargo, and whether there’s been overloading of the ferry, a commission of inquiry will be better able to ascertain that, okay?
I cannot do that at face value. I don’t want to be guessing and making assumptions there. This is a delicate situation. People lost their lives. How can I be saying that, you know, I mean, there’s been discrepancies in the loading of the ferry? I don’t know that.
I have been able to ascertain, through the work of the gentlemen we quickly put together to investigate and determine whether the ferry had the number of passengers that they said they had, and they did the work overnight, and we came to that figure of 179.
As we rescued people, we discovered that people who were rescued, obviously they were on the ferry and they were rescued, but they were not on the manifest. So, those are factual positions that we’ve concluded based on an investigation thus far.
So, the other investigation will determine the issues that you were raising.
Moseley: Because I’m asking that, sir, because we’ve heard from MARAD and marine folks that the ferry- and they kept saying this- the ferry was not overloaded. So, they’re providing that, and you’re saying, you know, this investigation will address that. So, I’m trying to gather the information that is being fed to you, because if on one hand they’re saying this ferry wasn’t overloaded, they’ve got to be looking at something. They’ve got to be looking at some figures.
Phillips: Yes, they have to be looking at figures. And, you know, I respect people’s professional opinion. There have been people with many years of experience working on ferries and, you know, loading and unloading ferries, et cetera.
However, I want to plead with the Guyanese people to allow the commission of inquiry to do its work. I can assure you, we’ll put together that commission of inquiry as early as possible and allow that commission of inquiry, and it will be an independent commission of inquiry, okay, to arrive at the report based on statements, based on inspection, interviews, et cetera, okay?
Moseley: Where do you think, sir, the buck stops when it comes to responsibility for this tragedy? Where does the buck stop?
Phillips: Again, a commission of inquiry will determine all of that.
Moseley: It’s got to be somebody. You must know there are managers in place. There are managers—
Phillips: The commission of inquiry will determine where the buck stops, okay?
This is a tragedy that none of us wanted. I don’t think anybody got up on Saturday or on Friday, or whenever when they decided to load the ferry, and so, I don’t think any of us in a managerial position or at the government level deliberately decided that we wanted an incident like this.
This is unfortunate, but we need a commission of inquiry to get to the bottom of it.
Moseley: But there have been folks who have already been suspended, who’ve already been removed from their jobs. So, clearly, they’re being seen as—
Phillips: Administrative leave. These are normal actions that you take in situations like these. You remove people, right? You send them on administrative leave, right, as you prepare to do an investigation, right?
This is a sensitive issue, and those are necessary actions that must be taken at this stage. The order you take those actions, it helps in the work of the inquiry, okay?
Moseley: I know the National Assembly is set to meet, I think, sometime this week.
Phillips: On Monday.
Moseley: On Monday. Monday the National Assembly will meet. Will the government, before that meeting, seek to brief the parliamentary parties, all the parliamentary parties, the opposition parties, on the issues, where they’re up to speed so far on this issue? And so, we’ve seen the opposition leader, we’ve seen other members of the opposition out in the area assisting with search efforts.
Phillips: You know, we welcome the assistance of all Guyanese in the search effort, okay?
At the appropriate time, we will have the necessary briefings, okay? I don’t have a date or a time, but I can assure you that, yes, those are normal things that will be done.
We’ll have the necessary briefing at the appropriate date and time, and people will be informed, okay, as to when we’ll be doing those briefings.
Right now, we are focused on the operation at hand, and every day we are giving updates on what we would have done on a particular day.
And you were present last evening, and you were there before, as we present our updates. And those updates are on social media, right? They’re in the newspapers, they’re in the television reports, okay?
So, I would say the same opposition people that you said should be briefed, they are getting information too. But essentially, what they do with the information is another thing.
But essentially, certainly, there will be a forum that will be established, right, as soon as possible, to have a briefing for everybody.
Whether it’s done on Monday, it’s too early for me to say, but certainly that is something that will be done.
Moseley: But essentially, sir, what you’re saying is that these parliamentary representatives are also representing people from those affected communities, constituents in those communities. They have to tune in to TV, to radio, to read, pick up the newspaper, to learn about what is going on, rather than to have a briefing before, like we’ve had in various circumstances. Why isn’t that taking place so that they’re properly briefed, rather than to have to tune in at 6:30 or 5 o’clock or whenever there’s a press briefing or information being relayed? Why isn’t that being done?
Phillips: You know, there’s a press briefing, and every Guyanese, including the opposition elements, could listen to those press briefings.
If anybody wants any separate or special briefing, they can make such a request. But you did ask about us having a forum where everybody will be briefed, and I’m telling you that will be arranged as early as possible.
Whether we do it at Parliament on Monday or whatever, it will be done as early as possible.
Moseley: And I know, sir, last evening, coming up to the end of that press conference last evening, you defended a statement you had made earlier about noise coming from the public, and people were turned off by that. And there’s been a blowback with regard to that. And they’re saying, “What exactly do you mean when you talk about noise that’s coming?” Because we’re here faced with a national tragedy. Why would concerns of citizens, whether you like them or not as a government, why are those concerns being referred to as noise?
Phillips: There were concerns, and there were, as far as I’m concerned, reckless statements being made.
The noise that I’m talking about were the reckless statements that were being made out there.
I am not going to sit down now on your show and try to examine what was reckless, but I am saying I categorize all those reckless and unhelpful statements at this stage, as we focus on recovering bodies, and as before, we focused on rescuing people, as noise.
That’s my statement. I stand by my statement. I make no apologies for that.
Statements that are helpful, yes, I appreciate that. Statements that were unhelpful, I categorize them as noise.
Moseley: Do you think the posture, though, of the government, yourself included, in addressing this situation in days after this tragedy could have been different? Because many persons have said the government comes across, government officials are coming across as arrogant, even as their families are dealing with this. There are concerned members of the public. We have people who may not have even known those who may have passed away. They’re going through the grief too. As a nation, we are grieving. We have three days of mourning now. So, do you think the posture of the government, how you’re interacting with the public, how you’re interacting generally, could have been different?
Phillips: You know how we would have interacted with the public from the start to now. As far as I’m concerned, and I’m part of it, it is the same way I will interact in any tragedy faced by this nation.
Focus all our efforts on being helpful. Helpful in saving lives, helpful in recovering the bodies of those who unfortunately did not make it, and also, at the same time, reaching out to families and helping them in this time of grief.
And we have done that. We have done that. We’ve utilized all means and all the resources of government to reach out to families.
In our press briefing, we have shown empathy. If there are people out there who feel that we come across as being arrogant, they are entitled to their opinion, okay?
But there are many people out there who are very appreciative of what the government is doing, okay?
We will continue in a most caring way to deal with this tragedy. I can assure you.
Press briefings, high degree of transparency. We have nothing to hide. We have nothing to hide, okay?
We are interested, like everybody out there, in bringing closure to the families who would have lost their loved ones, okay?
Moseley: And Mr. Prime Minister, I know you have to leave, sir. Finally, three days of national mourning begin today. You want to share some information with the three days and what’s going to be happening from today and over the next two days as part of these three days of national mourning?
Phillips: Well, in addition to flying the flag at half-mast at all government facilities over the next three days, we encourage all the religious groups in Guyana, right, to reach out to people, right, and, you know, pray for those who would have lost their lives, pray for those who were rescued and enduring some trauma.
While we offer psychosocial assistance, we recognize that, you know, at this time, prayers are also effective in helping people cope with what they are going through.
And also our prayers and our words of appreciation to all those people out there, not only from the Coast Guard, the police, and the government side, MARAD, but also to all the private individuals who participated and continue to be out there as part of this whole effort to recover bodies.
Now, you know, the divers who are going down there, and we have a big service this afternoon in the Kingston Seawall area, right? And there are notifications out there. There are notifications out there.
But, you know, this is a time that, as a nation, we all have to hold hands together and see ourselves through this difficult moment in our country.
