Let Edghill stay, those above him must go

Jul 23, 2026 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

Hard Truths by GHK Lall

(Kaieteur News) – The clamor is thunderous: EDGHILL MUST GO! I say NO! The people who put Minister Juan Edghill where he is must go. The people who kept Minister Edghill there must go. I take these positions for these reasons.

First, if Pres. Ali was present in the hour of crisis, there would be no Juan Edghill making representations that now haunt him, load him with regrets. I believe he still has that human essence. I think that Pres Ali would have pushed him aside, and raced to the forefront to sell his own productions. I ask pro-PPP and anti-PPP Guyanese to think. Would Minister Edghill been given a chance to inform, defend? I don’t think so. So, who would have been the one lashing out at “overload” and “engine failure”?

Minister Edghill would have had to hug the sidelines. In his president’s absence, due to the urgencies attached to the presidency, Minister Edghill was saddled with the chore of going into full defensive-aggressive mode and tear apart those finding fault with the government. Denounce “overload” and “engine” issues as fake news and mischief. He did. Then the bottom beneath Juan Edghill crumbled. Fake news was real news. Mischief transformed to prophetic truth. Minister Edghill, like the proverbial whale, was left stranded on the beach. He didn’t venture too far, or spoke too quickly. He did what had become normalised in the PPP Govt. Denied. Deflected. Denounced. Dismissed.

Second, I pardon the minister for overzealousness (no overload, no engine problem). But who would pardon the minister, or any other in the government, when a brand-new boat bought in 2023 has not yet been put in service? To repeat my Catholic Standard comment: did Guyana get a new boat, or a pig in a bag? He had delivered a defensive mouthful in Stabroek News, in June 2023. Now comes the contradiction: Why is the MV Ma Liska in drydocks with a fixup bill for almost $200 million? This was what sent the doomed MV Barima to the seafloor. To carry over a hundred Guyanese to their deaths. Adolf Hitler and Adolf Eichmann used to transport Jews to waiting chambers of death. What’s different with the steel chambers of the MV Barima that led to the end of over a hundred sons and daughters of Guyana? Were they, also, a lower life form? Were they, too, undesirable, hence, expendable?

Third, I expand my earlier pig-in-bag assertion. Scan the tender rehab documents for the MV Ma Liska. Guyana didn’t get a new boat. Not with that many repair areas and systems needing replacement or revitalising. Without a mile travelled. Was that boat cannibalised and Guyana sold a shell? Well-camouflaged, naturally. A shell of a boat that made the MV Barima into a death boat. When the MV Ma Liska couldn’t pull its own weight, then the already sickly, rickety, MV Barima was deadweight in the most fatal meaning of the word.

Fourth, the ones who should go are those involved in the US$12.7 million MV Ma Liska. Was it stripped down in India? Or was it vandalised in Guyana? Now it needs US$1 million to oxygenate into working life. The Indian firm should reimburse Guyana that amount, AND 50 percent of the cost price for this dud ship. I pray that it is not another floating deathtrap for poor, hardworking, and tricked Guyanese. Cubans aren’t the only ones in Guyana getting cheated with what’s due to them. The Guyana Government does that to its own. Guyanese were either double-crossed with that boat, or they are now been given doubletalk with its condition. These mysteries now forever link the MV Ma Liska and MV Barima. One paralysed; the other dead.

Finally, keep Minister Edghill right where he is. So that Guyanese always remember him for the 100+ citizens who died, but should never have. The ones above him should go. In 1960s England, a sex scandal dispatched the MacMillan government. In 2026 Guyana, 100+ Guyanese die in a mass killing, and the PPP Government resists going.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper)

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GHK Lall, Juan Edghill, PPP

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