Two Trinidadians named to Guyana ferry disaster probe

Two Trinidad and To­ba­go mar­itime ex­perts have been ap­point­ed to the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry es­tab­lished by Guyana Pres­i­dent Dr Ir­faan Ali to in­ves­ti­gate the cap­siz­ing and sink­ing of the MV Bari­ma.

An­nounc­ing the five-mem­ber com­mis­sion on Sat­ur­day, Ali named Trinidad and To­ba­go at­tor­ney Nairi Dawn Al­fon­so, an ex­pert in ad­mi­ral­ty and mar­itime law, and re­tired Rear Ad­mi­ral Hay­den Pritchard, a vet­er­an of mar­itime op­er­a­tions and mar­itime se­cu­ri­ty, among the com­mis­sion­ers.

The com­mis­sion will be chaired by Jus­tice God­frey Philip Smith of Be­lize, CARI­COM High Lev­el Rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Law and Crim­i­nal Jus­tice and an Ad Hoc Jus­tice of the East­ern Caribbean Court of Ap­peal.

The oth­er mem­bers are Pol­ish naval ar­chi­tect and ma­rine en­gi­neer Dr An­dre Jesse Anungs­ki, who has ad­vised on in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to sev­er­al ma­jor mar­itime dis­as­ters, and Cap­tain Hama­da Fau­da, Se­nior Mar­itime Sur­vey­or and Com­pli­ance Au­di­tor with the Mar­itime Au­thor­i­ty of Ja­maica.

Ali said the com­mis­sion was es­tab­lished un­der the Com­mis­sions of En­quiry Act and ful­fils a com­mit­ment he made fol­low­ing the tragedy.

The com­mis­sion has been tasked with de­ter­min­ing the full cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the cap­siz­ing and sink­ing of the MV Bari­ma, in­clud­ing the caus­es of the dis­as­ter, the load­ing of the ves­sel, pas­sen­ger board­ing pro­ce­dures, con­di­tions on board and any oth­er re­lat­ed mat­ters.

It will al­so re­view all as­pects of the search, res­cue and re­cov­ery op­er­a­tion, in­clud­ing the ad­e­qua­cy, co­or­di­na­tion and ef­fec­tive­ness of the re­sponse by agen­cies and stake­hold­ers.

Com­mis­sion­ers will ex­am­ine whether fer­ry laws, reg­u­la­tions, stan­dards and op­er­at­ing pro­ce­dures were fol­lowed and de­ter­mine whether neg­li­gence, mis­con­duct, dere­lic­tion of du­ty or oth­er fail­ures by any in­di­vid­ual, en­ti­ty or in­sti­tu­tion con­tributed to the dis­as­ter.

The en­quiry will al­so in­spect the ves­sel's con­di­tion and main­te­nance his­to­ry, as­sess its sea­wor­thi­ness and ex­am­ine the in­flu­ence of weath­er, sea con­di­tions, tides, cur­rents, nav­i­ga­tion, com­mu­ni­ca­tions and oth­er op­er­a­tional fac­tors.

In ad­di­tion, the com­mis­sion will re­view the qual­i­fi­ca­tions and con­duct of the ves­sel's mas­ter and crew, pas­sen­ger man­age­ment pro­ce­dures, pos­si­ble over­crowd­ing, car­go stowage, the avail­abil­i­ty of life-sav­ing equip­ment and com­pli­ance with pas­sen­ger safe­ty re­quire­ments.

The pan­el is ex­pect­ed to rec­om­mend leg­isla­tive, reg­u­la­to­ry, in­sti­tu­tion­al and op­er­a­tional re­forms to strength­en mar­itime safe­ty, im­prove emer­gency pre­pared­ness and re­duce the like­li­hood of sim­i­lar tragedies.

Ali said the le­gal in­stru­ments re­quired to es­tab­lish the com­mis­sion are be­ing fi­nalised and that it will be­gin its work once those for­mal­i­ties are com­plet­ed.

The com­mis­sion was an­nounced a week af­ter the MV Bari­ma cap­sized and sank off Guyana's coast on the night of Ju­ly 18 while trav­el­ling from George­town to Port Kai­tu­ma, in what has be­come the coun­try's dead­liest mar­itime dis­as­ter. Au­thor­i­ties have since re­cov­ered dozens of bod­ies while res­cue and re­cov­ery ef­forts con­tin­ue.