Ali shrugs off calls for Edghill to go

Last Updated on Thursday, 6 August 2026, 16:29 by Denis Chabrol

President Irfaan Ali on Thursday shrugged of persistent calls by the opposition and other interest groups for minister of maritime transport Juan Edghill to go, in the wake of last month’s deadly ferry MV Barima tragedy.

“There is a COI (Commission of Inquiry) and I have established its independence and let the COI work, ok,” he said when asked  by Demerara Waves Online News to respond to calls for Mr Edghill to be sent on leave or resign.

Mr Edghill, as late as Wednesday, remained on the job and accompanied Dr Ali to a ministerial outreach to Region One (Barima-Waini), the region worst hit by the sinking of the ferry on July 19 while travelling from Georgetown to Port Kaituma.

The President made known his position as he was leaving a community meeting at Melanie Damishana nursery school, East Coast Demerara where he had gone to discuss his model village project.

Streets around the school were barricaded by police to keep anti-government protesters at bay. There was just a handful them at the main road to the village. Before Dr Ali’s arrival through another route, the Chairman of the Buxton-Foulis neighbourhood council Walston Martins and a woman were escorted from opposite the school to beyond the police barriers. A woman was later arrested and whisked away in a police vehicle, and a suggestion was made that a journalist be arrested for what a senior police officer claimed was being in the midst of a police operation.

As police accompanied Mr Martins and the woman, he vociferously deemed the action against him as unconstitutional and said he would be taking the matter to court. He insisted that as the council chairman, he had a legitimate right to be at the community meeting. “I’m the chairman of this NDC. This is my jurisdiction… I will carry the whole pack to court and let us see who will win,” he said.

At the police barrier, the NDC Chairman later ridiculed the countrywide consultations on model villages, contending that it was calculated to distract Guyanese from the maritime disaster, believed to be the worst in the Caribbean.  “This government is a deflective government or a deflection government because we have a boat that is under the sea, we have people that are still hurting and you want to come and talk about a model village,” he said. He said rather than holding those meetings government should have consulted the NDC.

However, a senior police officer at the scene alleged that Mr Martins was overheard saying that he was not there for the meeting. Mr Martins had previously been among a small group of persons who had been protesting the charging of their villager,  MV Barima’s captain Kevin “KP” Price, as well two other Transport and Harbours Department workers with the murder of 72 passengers and crew members who were aboard the vessel.

Moments later, several A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) parliamentarians arrived and led chants calling for maritime transportation minister and the maritime regulation minister, Deodat Indar to go. “Who must go? and “Edghill and Indar mist go,” and “PPP must go”.

A police van that usually transports prisoners to and from courts was also deployed.

Government plans to salvage the MV Barima, with special emphasis on preserving forensic evidence, for the Commission of Inquiry into the incident. Seventy-six persons were rescued and 30 others are missing. Authorities estimate that there were 179 passengers and crew aboard the vessel when it went down in the Atlantic sea off the Essequibo Coast.