Some persons have determined guilt before the inquiry began

Oct 13, 2026 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Kaieteur News – When it comes to the M. V. Barima tragedy, there are persons who wants the neck of a Minister, and, if possible two. They want them summoned, grilled, condemned, and, if possible, escorted directly from the witness box to prison.

Anything less, they contend, would be an insult to public intelligence, an assault on accountability, and probably evidence of a conspiracy involving everybody who has ever occupied a government office. The facts, meanwhile, are expected to have the good manners to fall into line.

This is the curious spectacle surrounding the Commission of Inquiry. Before the investigators have even started public hearings, before the operational details have been fully examined, and before the evidence has established where responsibility lies, certain individuals have already assembled their courtroom and selected their defendants.

Their position is refreshingly simple: somebody must be held accountable, and that somebody must be a Minister of the PPP/C Government. It cannot merely be a failure of supervision, a breakdown in operational procedures, an error of management, or even tidal conditions. Heaven forbid that responsibility should stop somewhere below Cabinet level.

One suspects that if the Commission were to discover that the immediate cause of a failure lay squarely within operational management, these self-appointed guardians of accountability would demand an investigation into why the investigation had failed to discover a Minister.

For them, accountability is predetermined destination to which the evidence must be transported, preferably with the Minister handcuffed in the passenger seat. The most revealing feature of this obsession is the endless fixation on whether the two Ministers with direct responsibilities for the relevant areas will be summoned to testify and cross-examined.

Consider the extraordinary logic. The Commission has a broad mandate and extensive powers. It is empowered to investigate the relevant circumstances and establish responsibility. Yet some people appear incapable of contemplating the exercise of those powers without first demanding a public guarantee that the Ministers will be called.

Why? Are they worried that the Commission might somehow overlook the existence of two Ministers? Perhaps they imagine the investigators sitting around a table, examining documents, interviewing witnesses, and suddenly asking, “Does anybody know who was responsible for this department?”

There is, of course, no mystery about the matter. If the inquiry establishes that ministerial decisions, policy failures, or failures of oversight require examination, the Commission can summon the Ministers and question them. If their evidence needs to be tested, they can be cross-examined. That is precisely why an inquiry possesses investigative powers.

But the existence of those powers does not mean that the Commission must begin with the Ministers and work its way downwards, as though responsibility were a ladder on which the highest rung automatically bears the greatest blame. The sensible approach is to investigate the events, establish the sequence of decisions, identify the people responsible for those decisions, and follow the evidence wherever it leads.

That might involve questioning the management of the Transport and Harbours Department, examining the role of its Board, scrutinising the management of the Maritime Administration Department (MARAD), and investigating the conduct of those responsible for implementing and supervising operational procedures.

It might also involve examining the formulation of policy, the adequacy of oversight arrangements, the allocation of responsibilities, and the decisions taken by those charged with supervising the relevant institutions.

And if that evidence points towards the Ministers, then the Ministers should be questioned. There is no reason to presume that the Commission would hesitate to do so if their testimony is necessary to establish the truth.

But why must the inquiry be required to announce its destination before it has completed the journey?

The investigation must first establish what happened, how it happened, who knew what, who was responsible for acting, and whether established procedures were followed. Only then can the evidence determine whether the failure was operational, managerial, supervisory, systemic, or political.

This is not an argument for shielding Ministers. It is an argument against treating their condemnation as the predetermined purpose of the exercise.

Indeed, the obsession with whether the Ministers will be summoned exposes the very problem with this approach. Those consumed by that question appear less interested in discovering the full chain of responsibility than in securing a particular name at the end of it.

In their eyes, if the Ministers are summoned, they will demand to know why they have not yet been blamed. If they are not summoned immediately, they will declare the inquiry compromised. If the evidence points elsewhere, they will presumably investigate the investigators, preferably until somebody discovers the Minister they originally ordered.

At this rate, the Commission could publish its findings, release every document, and provide a detailed explanation of every decision, and somebody would still complain that the wrong person had been blamed.

A genuine inquiry is not a political fishing expedition in which the investigator is instructed to catch a particular fish. It is an exercise in establishing facts, testing evidence, and determining responsibility without fear or favour.

Ministers are not above scrutiny. Neither are departmental managers, board members, administrators, supervisors, or operational personnel. Public office does not confer immunity, but neither does it establish guilt.

The objective must be justice, not the satisfaction of those who have already decided who should be sacrificed.

Let the Commission do its work. Let it examine the evidence, question those who need to be questioned, and follow the trail wherever it leads. If that trail ends at a Minister’s door, so be it.

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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