OPINION: MV Barima: dying a lingering death, another one

Last Updated on Monday, 31 August 2026, 8:02 by Denis Chabrol

By GHK Lall

Soon it will be three weeks since the deadline for tenders to lift the MV Barima from its watery berth was passed. Three weeks for a crucial aspect of an investigation kept in some secret PPP chamber is adding a new crime to the one that has grown on Guyanese since July 18, 2026. The tender for the salvaging held under lock-and-key is the latest in the emerging picture of what the PPP Govt’s vision and tactics are going to be on this tragedy. Since it cannot find anyone to pass it onto, as part of the old blame game, then the government is going to sit on it. The hope is that the sharpness of people’s interest dulls, they move on with their lives. Bottom line: the PPP Govt succeeds in pulling another slick one on the Guyanese people, escapes scot-free.

Post-tender deadline developments for salvaging the capsized boat can’t get going. Part One of a general low temperature, go slow, and no-show approach by the PPP Govt. Part Two has long been obvious: The Commission of Inquiry that can’t get its bearings, has lost its sense of direction (and maybe balance), is unable to get going. Three weeks for the salvage envelopes to be opened and shared with an attentive and engaged public. Four weeks and counting relative to the COI starting its engine. Discernment comes. This is more than a go-slow or sickout. It’s a full out stall, the beginnings of a death rattle. Something else I should share. Upon learning that a COI member was a real-life politician, my temperature spoked, and so did the blood pressure. Sheer terror visited. It hasn’t dissipated. Given the severity of the MV Barima tragedy, the reasonable expectation was to detect some degree of urgency. Guyanese are still waiting over four weeks later. There’s appreciation that the pace is slower in this neighborhood, due to culture, and the scorching heat. But this is no ordinary slowdown. It’s a slow march to a lingering death on all matters related to the boat that went down, with the PPP Govt’s preference being to let bygones be bygones. Why risk the torments that arise when ant’s nests are dug up? Who wants to be around that angry situation?

Perhaps, that explains why the men who measured MV Barima related “noise” levels have all gone silent. Neither media appearances nor soundbites. Scarce they have made themselves. Has anybody seen or heard from Mark, Juan, and Indar (all prefixed by honorable, of course) of late? The media has been pressing for updates, others have been writing, and it’s the old PPP Iron Curtain drawn and battened down. This is unrelated to anybody opening mouth and proving self to be the village idiot or national imbecile. It has everything to do with opening mouth and some dangerous stray story jumps out. Better to follow orders. A gag order is in place by the PPP Govt headmen on the juniors and secondary players in this national disaster.

So, this is where matters stand weeks after initiation. Silence surrounds the tenders (EoIs) for the salvaging of the boat. What is buried, should stay buried! Oxygen quality thins. Silence surrounds the COI: what it is really about, where it is going. Oxygen supply begins to weaken, reach redline levels. Silence from ministers, silence from bit players. Oxygen is nonexistent, the point of fatal strangulation reached. The dead dishonored. The living insulted and assaulted.

The PPP Govt has its MV Barima package perfected. A salvage exercise that yields nothing. A COI that goes nowhere. Leaders and ministers go to town. They are celebrating dodging another bullet, by consigning the postmortem of the MV Barima to a lingering, disgraceful death. Two life-size replicas of the MV Barima should be made. One placed before the front door of Freedom House. The other in the yard of State House.z