Going through parliament

Jul 27, 2026 Editorial, News

(Kaieteur News) – Speaker of the National Assembly, Manzoor Nadir, is in the spotlight. He does not have plenty of space to maneuver, his back is up against a wall, and the corners are tight. How will the speaker respond? The call is for a debate in parliament on the terms of reference for an independent Commission of Inquiry (COI) into the MV Barima disaster. What will the speaker do? Will he open the chambers of parliament to an honest debate, or will he disagree?

The speaker now finds himself in a most uncomfortable place: the lengthy rope of his past. Either, it catches up with him and ties him up, or it frees him and gives him new standing. Before there can be a debate of any kind on the national disaster that is the sinking of the MV Barima and its 72 and counting confirmed dead, there is a question to be answered. Does the Speaker Nadir consider the MV Barima disaster a development worthy of parliamentary minutes? This is where his record comes into play, puts him to the test.

The US$2B Wales Gas-to-Energy and its litany of costly problems were not seen by the speaker as matters deserving space for parliamentary questions and motions. In December 2023, the speaker gave short thrift to a motion from the parliamentary opposition calling for the establishment of a multi-stakeholder taskforce to deal with developments generated by the Guyana-Venezuela border controversy. In April 2025, the speaker denied a petition from Opposition MP, Amanza Walton on behalf of human rights bodies relative to the suspicious death of 11-year-old Adriana Younge. During that same session of parliament, the speaker also denied a motion proposing an alert system to be named in honor of the fallen child, i.e., the ‘Younge Child Alert System.’ It would have been Guyana’s equivalent to the ‘Amber Alert’ system that is operational in the U.S.

It is against this history of Speaker Nadir that we at this paper wait to get a glimpse of where he will be. Will the opposition’s call for a debate on the terms of reference for the MV Barima disaster run into a brick wall, as the speaker has proven to be? He has been an unyielding stone wall relative to allowing debate on Guyana’s most expensive land-based project to date, the Wales GTE. He has stopped dead in its tracks the call for a taskforce on the Guyana-Venezuela border controversy. If on a matter that represents existential danger to this country, Speaker Nadir could be so inexplicably stubborn, then what could be open to? A small child died in circumstances that brought old wounds to the forefront, and ripped new ones into the fabric of this nation, and the Speaker did not budge on a petition and a motion raised in parliament. The outlook on any type of debate relative to the MV Barima disaster could be on precarious ground. If, in sharp contrast to his past decisions, the speaker allows a debate to proceed, would he put obstacles in its path to slowdown, or go around, the terms of the COI?

For its part, the APNU Opposition has acted with astuteness in placing the MV Barima disaster in parliament. The format and terms of the COI that results would be shaped by many minds and in a most public forum. Guyanese could get a COI that is not the unilateral handiwork of any one person or group operating behind closed doors. The speaker should allow the fullest media coverage. Bruised and appalled citizens would be allowed a firsthand view of who in parliament is truly for a COI that is expansive as this disaster warrants, and gives some peace of mind to surviving family members. Who could be so callous as to vote for a COI that has such limited terms, it insults the memory of the dead and their families?

Speaker Nadir is in difficult straits, with his parliamentary past to overcome. There is a motion for a debate on the COI’s terms of reference. That debate must happen, and in the fairest and most unchecked manner. We urge Speaker Nadir to discern what the toll of the MV Barima disaster requires. He has a duty to rise to the occasion. He must pilot the process of honest inquiry that respects the dead, the families, and all citizens.

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Commission of Inquiry, Editorial, Manzoor Nadir, MV Barima disaster, National Assembly

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