Speeches in the National Assembly

APPOINTMENT OF A COMMISSION OF INQUIRY TO INVESTIGATE THE INCIDENCE OF MARITIME AND RIVERINE INCIDENTS, INJURIES AND DEATHS
Minister of Public Works [Mr. Benn]: We, at the Public Works Ministry and the Maritime Administration Department, and myself, personally, are very close to this matter and had been working extremely hard to bring about improvements with respect to this issue which have seen challenging circumstances because of the tremendous growth. As was said by the Hon. Leader of the Opposition Brigadier (Ret’d) Granger, we have moved, in his words, from a corial economy to a more commercial economy. This is true, what he has said that we have moved from corial economy to a more commercial economy. I am glad that he has made that acknowledgement and that in these new circumstances, in the new pressure, in the new movement of goods and services to continue the development of our economy, there are risks, there are incidents, there are circumstances which we have been working at, very hard, to make sure that the incidents which occurred... The Hon. Member referred to nine deaths over the average of years that he speaks to.
It is true that any position, on this matter which would suggest that perhaps there should not be a Commission of Inquiry, may not sound empathetic, may not sound to be a position that one would think would garner over all our total sympathy from, I guess, Members on the other side and significant members of the public to some extent. I want to point out the efforts that we have been making, with respect to responding to the growth in our economy, to the growth in maritime and riverine transport, to responding to the challenges where we have been trying to move our people working on the rivers, and also on the roads too, to the requirements for a new safety culture, with respect to operating on the rivers and on the roads.
The Hon. Member referred to laws and regulations, some in his parlance, his estimation, seemingly outdated, but they are still valid. They are still valid and I want to reject the suggestion that he has been putting  to the honourable House that we have not been making the regular inspections that we are required to make under the laws, under the regulations, and that we do not have the capacity at the Ministry of Public Works, through its maritime arm, the Maritime Administration Department, to take a hold, to take account, of this problem.  I want to reject it.
I would like to point out that over the last five years alone the amount of boat, speed boats, that is, and not to mention other commercial traffic, and what we are now calling water taxis, have been more than doubled. They have more than doubled on our rivers. Moreover, that the number of journeys they undertake and the number of people and cargo that they move on the rivers have been, in themselves, more than doubled.
The Hon. Member has spoken to a time when he said... This is what I recalled as what was termed as raw rank days. When it was raw rank days and there were the bateaus and men paddling and going on the rivers, I would say to the Member that not all of the porkknockers, not all of the Amerindian people, not all of the Guyanese people who drowned on our rivers were even recorded by the Department of Lands and Mines in the past and by colonial authorities. It is not true to say that they were recorded in great detail. Many were not counted.  If one goes to the old porkknockers and the records...  I have had the experience personally of working on the rivers, of diving in the rivers, since 1971 as an 18-year-old, in our country, going up the Cuyuni River, the Mazaruni River, the Essequibo River. I have had the experience of losing fellow officers and men working with us when we were doing our mineral exploration in the interior of the country.   [Lt. Col. (Ret’d) Harmon: You were doing private work on Government’s time.] The Hon. Member Harmon would be wiser not to be facetious. If I were to start to call the names of  Agrippa and all of the other officers who we have  lost on our rivers over the years, and having had to deal with those issue to having had to lose our boat captains - Captain Macky and other on the Kamaria Range, Agrippa and the Potaro Range and all of the others – in difficult circumstances of having to work to develop our country,  he would not think now that it was a laughing matter, then or now. I say, again, it is not true to suggest that they counted us all. They counted us when they were taking us to work for them, to dig the gold and the diamonds. That is when it mattered to them.
In relation to current activities and the current challenges, we have made a lot of efforts. I would speak here to the water taxi service which was improved over the years at Stabroek, Vreed-en-Hoop and in many way Parika-Bartica, and even now Parika-Supenaam, where we responded to specify issues relating to safety on the rivers; the outfitting of new transoms on the boats and of an inner transom which related to the incident that happened on the Corentyne River, some years ago, where some of our people lost their lives. The engine got knocked out with the back of the boat and it swamped. There was no inner transom and we responded to that. I required the Maritime Administration Department to redesign the boats. An inner transom was fitted, flotation devices are fitted in every boat now, which never existed before. There was never an inner transom; there were never flotation devices in each and every boat. We have put in place too, for the water taxi service or for perhaps more than 80% or more of all of the service operators, tops on the boats. There are covers, life jackets, both for adults and children; there are regular inspections; there are persons at the stelling to count and record the passengers on each and every boat. Never in the history of the country there was manifest and the operators, in the associations, have a safety representative who records these types of information. I am surprised that the Hon. Members, who, I believe, also use this type of service, are seemingly to be completely unaware of these initiatives.
We have taken, even with the great distress, even with the expansion in response to the higher gold prices, the movement on the rivers, particularly in the rainy season,  the efforts to engage with our people in the handing out of  leaflets, of brochures, of having our river navigation officers go out there and hold seminars with them, of having weekly visits, going around on a circuit to the various associations, the various stellings, where the passengers operate to improve safely consciousness. We are aware that we have moved from a situation... When I went into the interior, the first time, the fastest boat or the largest engine, which would have been on any boat, was a 25 horsepower. There was usually a 10-12 Evinrude and Valvo engines on the boats. Most persons who had a boat... The biggest engine was a 25 horsepower engine and that was in the early 1970s.
Over the years, and here and now, there is  a situation where - much younger people, much larger boats - the typical range of engine size is between 75 and 150 horsepower and they are also 200 four-stroke engines. We have been working hard to put the associations in good order, to have them have safety representatives to relate with those on the committees to have quarterly safety review meetings, with respect to the activities on the rivers.
Recently, we have been putting in additional safety signs on the Mazaruni River particularly, on the Pomeroon and on the Moruka Rivers, in addition to the other buoys and markers which are there  in various areas on the roads. As I said, these are in addition to the regular weekly patrols and visits on the Cuyuni, Mazaruni, Pomeroon, Barima and Essequibo Rivers. Visits have been made, in particular, to riverine areas where there is movement of schoolchildren on the rivers and also farmers and others going to market, to raise the level of safety consciousness and to improve the environment under which they operate.
The Maritime Administration Department has started or has continued to work on a programme distributing. We are distributing, even now, required by the time the school opens, 1, 000 life jackets to schoolchildren in the riverine areas in the country. Two hundred jackets have already been distributed. I, myself, have distributed some last year to some schools on the Demerara River.  There is an arrangement with a public relations enterprise which is working up to deliver more information,  for the television, and to develop material to keep training, recurring training, for  owners and operators of those vessels.
With respect to our activity with defaulting operators, there has certainly been a suspension with the defaulting operators. We are requiring persons who have moved, let us say 20 to 24 hours from one piloted area, let us say the Demerara River, the North West or to Berbice, to have, and we are ensuring that they have, the required manning levels, and, that is, to  train men as sailors on the boats, and mates. We have been working and having training being done with respect to our own young people to become pilots, to become maritime inspectors and officers for vessels. At the moment, there are (24 was the number in which we have started) I think, 23 persons who are being trained in this regard. They have come a long way, with respect to the type of training they received. They are already deployed on the Essequibo River and on the Berbice River and are making expectations at the other piloted areas, with respect to enforcing the regulations. This did not exist before.
Let me say too that the question of overall, total, holistic, maritime safety does not reside with the Maritime Administrative Department alone. The Maritime Administration Department has historically been dealing with vessels, mainly large piloted vessels on the rivers and then vessels going out into the maritime space. It has taken up the role of oversight for riverine vessels which was traditionally done by the Lands and Mines Department and then by the geological surveys at Mines Department, in my time, which is why I am very familiar with the issues, and it  has been mandated and is required to take all the steps necessary to make sure that we bring improvements in this area.
We have been visiting, working with, aside from what has been suggested in the presentation prior to mine, financing, where we can, persons who have had injury, their relatives and their friends. We have made contributions with respect to giving assistance where there has been a tragedy. We have had discussions with respect to, and are working at putting in place, a benevolent fund to continue to make this type of contribution, which I am speaking to, when there is a problem, when there is a tragedy. Our first priority, though, is to protect the lives of our Guyanese people and this was why, not today but even before I became a Minister, we adopted a number of steps and approaches to deal with this matter. I have said that we alone do not deal with this matter. We worked together with the coastguard, we worked together with the marine police, they also have responsibilities and responses under the Act and the regulations to be able to deal with the increase in issues that are out there - the challenges.
We have had, I believe, a satisfactory and measured response to the matter. If I were to take the same approach to say what goes on the roads, with respect to, perhaps, the minibus operations, in some areas, then we would have a call for another Commission of Inquiry, maybe to deal with the increase in death on the road as a result in growth in commercial activity, growth in travelling on the road and growth in the number of accidents. I know that there has been some improvements over the last three or four years.  If one were to measure the number of accidents, the number of issues there were against the number of journeys, the number of passengers moved and the number of freightage moved, and the times at which they have moved, I believe that we will come out in a positive position.
We have been working with the Guyana Fire Service to organise firefighting and first aid training for boat operators. As I said, we have been enforcing new reporting requirements for vessels. We are having the safety review, every quarter, of the representation for Maritime Administration Department (MARAD) and the association of the safety representatives, not only from the commercial water taxi operators, but also with those who carry on normal commercial traffic in moving goods and providing other services on the waterway. Every boat, which passes out of the Demerara channel, has to report where it is going, who is the master on the vessel, who is the owner of the vessel, what the contact number and the radio numbers are. There are those reports every month and there are also the address and the telephone number of the nearest reportable next of kin. These are all things we are doing.
The Hon. Member made some issue about the question of annual inspections and certifications. I want to report that this is being done, that the inspections are done on a quarterly basis. The formal annual inspection is also being done. Some of our officers are being described as bugbear and harassing some delinquent or unruly persons. The level of diligence, the level of the examination, the level of oversight, which   is there, is perhaps in the beginning. Of course, it is not one which they wanted but one which I think, overall, everybody wants and particularly too which the passengers want, the question of putting on the life jackets, and all of these issues.
We have the difficulty… The only idea I had recently on the matter was that perhaps every time an engine, over 10 horsepower, is sold it has to be licensed with the Maritime Administration Department for a fee. That would generally tell us that a new boat is coming out and there is a growth, rather than simply counting.  There was a situation where there was a shout in the interior. A young man goes out there, gets a bit of money, decides to buy a boat, it might be for simple personal use, in the first instance to run from his house on the river to go and gets his goods and other services. Then he sees an opportunity to ‘pope’ the system and so he decides to run to the landing, off to the side, and he loads up the boat  with passengers and before the police could get to him, or the maritime recorders at Parika, or anywhere, and try to make notes, he would be off and running. That has been the factor, the critical factor in the most recent accidents on the Cuyuni River.
I want to decry the suggestion by the Hon. Member, Brigadier (Ret’d) David Granger, that the operators of our boats cannot even spell the word “boat.” I think it is insulting.  I hope that it was a slip of the tongue and that he would withdraw the remark. They may not be educated as some of us here. They may not be highly educated, as all of them, but one thing I will give is that they could spell many four letter words. I would not want to further have this National Assembly lower itself in position. Someone talked about the Parliament having egg on its face. I have said before, in this honourable House, that I thought the Tenth Parliament was ruined.  Here it is we are resorting to insulting the people at the bottom, who work hard every day to develop the country, by saying that they cannot even spell the word “boat.” At the end of the day, we will be covered with worse than eggs on our face. We will be covered by something else all over us if we continue like this.
The Hon. Member has spoken about the class of culture. There is that. He has spoken about the laws and the regulations being there, that they are adequate if properly enforced. I am saying that they are being properly enforced. That there has been resistance by some operators and others to the enforcement; that there is a need for full and holistic oversight and acceptance. With respect to the matter, our officers are given a very hard time. I will also remind that there is, for the first time in this country, a Maritime Rescue and Recovery Coordination Centre.
Every time there is an incident where there is not a possibility, within a few hours, of knowing what the position is with the vessel… The centre is just over at Staborek here. It is opened. It has radios, Global Positioning System (GPS), everything. All the persons from the Maritime Administration Department, the coastguards, the marine police, the Guyana Fire Service, and all other persons, are there. They are there along with the harbour master and myself too, day and night, while we try to either rescue or recover. Whenever it is opened, it is opened. When there is an emergency, it is opened and every effort is made to vector any resource in the nearby area, or to get airplanes, or to get boats from Georgetown or other areas, or even, in a few cases, to get helicopter or airplane to fly over the area to bring rescue, recovery and sustenance reportage of persons who have been lost at sea for whom there are issues.
We have not only been working with respect to people, we have had problems in our maritime space, but we have had to also respond to issues on the Corentyne sides, Guyanese too. We have also had to respond to issues of Guyanese missing in Venezuela, at the mouth of the Orinoco. We have also have to respond to issues of Guyanese and other vessels passing through our maritime space, with respect to rescue and recovery and we have responded. We have also had to respond to issues of Guyanese mariners getting into trouble all the way to Curacao, Jamaica and all kinds of other places. We have responded to these issues.  The problem that we have here, we at the Ministry and perhaps to the Maritime Administration Department, is that we have not been beating our own drums to what we regard as fairly routine matters, important, but which have to deal with distress and anxieties and to meet families of those who are lost and to try to find them to get them to bring help to them.
I do not want to suggest that the positions set out in the call for the appointment for Commission of Inquiry by the Hon. Member Brigadier (Ret’d) David Granger… I do not want to demean them. I think they are, otherwise, well intentioned, but I believe, here and now, and particularly since I have a shadow, me and my shadow we can work to have a significant improvement in these and make him more aware, make the Opposition more aware, with respect to this matter, and to see that at the Ministry and we, at the Maritime Administration Department, have been making an honest effort to bring about the significant improvement in this situation.
I do not want to suggest that the loss of Guyanese on riverine areas and in the maritime space is not an important matter. It is. The loss of every Guyanese soul is important to all of us here. It is important to me as the Minister responsible, but if it is, having considered all of this, that this is the bar, this is a new standard, for a Commission of Inquiry, I think we will be holding Commission of Inquiry on every other issue, every other week. I am not suggesting, of course, that this is not a serious matter and that is why we have the system in place, the regulations in place and the officers in place. That is why they have to act on certain issues. We have required them, just now, to bring in five more new patrol boats, to have greater presence right up and down the rivers to bolster the work done by the coastguard and by the marine police.  If this is the new standard, in this Parliament, with respect to what is certainly of concern, I believe that we will have to have a Commission of Inquiry every other week.  I believe that our energy will be sapped, perhaps, in dealing with things which I do not want to simply call them routine because they are so important, but they are issues which we have to deal with on a routine basis. If an airplane crashes we have to deal with it, its investigations.
There is an Act on the Regulation, the Minister is required to under the Shipping Act, section 427:
(1) “Where any of the following casualties occurred, that is to say –…”

That is, inquiries and investigations to marine causalities. 
(a) the loss or presumed loss, stranding, grounding, abandonment of, or damage to, a ship;
(b) A loss of life caused by fire on board, or by any accident to, a ship or ship’s boat, or by any accident occurring on board a ship or ship’s boat; or
(c) any damage caused by a ship,
and, at the time it occurs, the ship was a Guyana ship or ship’s boat was in Guyana waters the Minister may cause a preliminary inquiry into the casualty to be held by a person appointed for the purpose by the Minister and with the assistance of one or more assessors being masters of Guyana ships or persons with special skills and knowledge in maritime matters.”
We have the requisite in-house capability with respect to this matter. There are a number of trained captains, when taken together, it will be over 200 years experience in respect of operating vessels and doing inspections, both in the maritime space and in the riverine space, and further:
“(2) whether or not a preliminary inquiry into the casualty has been held under subsection (1), the Minister may cause a formal investigation to be held by a Board appointed for that purpose.”
We have done these things.
Mr. Speaker, Hon. Members, it is my believe that this time, here and now,  the matter, important, as it is, and given the fact that the Maritime Administration Department and all the coastguards and the police are seized of the requirement, with respect to the growth in the system, and given the fact that we are already taken steps and have taken steps which have significantly improved safety on board our vessels or water taxis, with respect to training of captains and pilots and mariners, that a Commission of Inquiry, as mooted by the Hon. Member, well intentioned as it is otherwise, is not necessarily, with respect to this issue, because the bar, with respect to Commissions of Inquiry, would be seriously lowered. As usual, and as always, I am prepared and the Ministry and the Maritime Administration Department are required to work with elements of the Opposition.   [Ms. Selman: Elements again.]    But when you said elements on your side nobody protested on our side. The Hon. Member Brigadier (Ret’d) Granger said elements on our side were not interested in the matter and nobody protested. Why is this double standard? 
I am suggesting that we continue to work on this matter. We open our doors, our books, our information, our people to work with the Opposition on this matter, particularly my shadow, our colleague, Mr. Harmon to work with us, to get an open book and a better understanding of the challenges we are working at and as to how we are working to improve the situation, as we work with respect to all other issues under the purview of my Ministry.
I thank you. [Applause]